No one who has not been in the position of being completely at the mercy of another person can relate to the reality that is the energy of fear which is alive and well in the hearts and minds of abuse victims. As a Survivor of domestic abuse, I know well the fear that is still, even now, and, as well, the huge energy of mistrust, that comes with being abused. It does not happen overnight, but gradually, in steps and because of this mental manipulation, those who are stuck in the middle of the fracas are really only wanting one thing – peace. This is what abusers bring to the lives of those they see as their prey – the reality that is Fear. When a person is the target of another whose only motivation is controlling someone else, there is nothing that is not taboo that any abuser will use as a tactic to gain complete control over the person who they come to believe is their property.
Fear is the motivating energy which is particular to any abuser. It is the way that they manipulate their target, through whatever energy they will use. In my case, it was who I was that this person would lash out at, would use to begin the process of “ownership.” That is the truth of any such “couple” who is NOT equal and consists of the one who is owned and the owner. You see, there are some people who take literally the vows of marriage, namely the “obey” part, and for a whole lot of people, this is where the madness starts. When I perform marriages, and after the couple has gone through a whole LOT of pre-marital sessions with me, I exclude the word “obey” from the vows, because no one is anyone else’s pet, and no one is anyone else’s slave, and no one is young enough anymore to play the elementary school game called “The Bossa Me,” which really, no one in a relationship is the boss of anyone else.
Fear is the thing that an abuser cultivates in his or her victim, and they start scaring a person long before they marry them, and the person who is being brainwashed doesn’t even know or even notice that this is happening, because the reality is that also, long before the abuser entered into the picture, there has to be a history of the victim being manipulated by others, and usually this begins in childhood, where the people who we are told to trust the most are the ones who are not also taking into consideration that while it is that they, typically our parents, are not going to manipulate us so as to control us, this does not mean that other adults in our lives will not also set the bar for how much we will HAVE to endure later on down the road, when we are adults and caught squarely in the middle of a hell that is not our own making, and one which we were made open to when we were children and one which we had no clue was being created for us.
Fear is how they keep a person in place. Fear is how they control these people, and it starts out with them telling us that we are not good enough to be loved “just like that,” that we have to earn being lovable, let alone truly loved and cherished. There is no such thing as working for someone else’s love. Love is not something that just happens – between two people it must be cultivated, grown and cared for. There is no truth to the idea that who you are is not good enough for Love, because we are all good enough, and when it is that an abuser keys into the idea that who they have with them believes that they are not good enough for love is when the ugliness of abuse and the potential for violence has come into a person’s life.
I would love to tell anyone to not be afraid if they are stuck, almost seemingly and impossibly so, in a situation that they cannot get themselves out of all on their own. I can’t. I won’t. I know this fear and it is huge and tends to stay looming over our heads until one day, we figure out that the fear is the real thing that we have to get past, and that once we can get past it, things will be okay as soon as we can garner the energy needed to face what we must. In the case of being someone’s victim, the only energy we need, at first, is that of courage, and it is not of courage to leave, but more, courage to be who we really are, no matter what. It is the breaking down of the personality and the crushing of the spirit within the abuser’s victim that is ailing. It is not long afterwards that either through physical abuse, or through the constant state of worry and fear, that the person being abused begins to see the physical manifestation of what has been going on in their lives, and lots of times, they are not even aware of it. I know that I was not aware of it.
My own story of survival ends with my finally coming to terms with the idea that I had been taken for a 25 year long ride into the pit of a Hell that was not of my own making. The only way that I knew I would survive was not only to get out, alive, but more, that I would get out alive after having accepted that I might have started out as his victim, but I stand gloriously now, on my own, as my own Survivor.
It is not easy. It is very scary, but it is also so very worth it. Not only getting out alive, but growing into who I became, simply and only because I refused to remain someone else’s property.
Getting out takes time, but healing takes more time. Give yourself a break already. Really, you have earned it. If anyone at all knows what you are going through, I promise you that I do.
What else I promise you is that indeed, your situation is temporary. You have to choose to make it that way.
