I'm lying here wondering if I’ll ever wake up from this nightmare.
I never thought I would experience the amount of pain I have in the last two weeks. The physical wounds are healing. In a couple weeks all of the bruises will be gone and my bones will be almost healed and back to normal. It will look as if nothing ever went wrong. But the deepest hurt is where no one can see.
I pride myself in trying to live my life as Jesus would. I try to give more than receive and love others with everything I have. I truly believe that the good you put out in the world will come right back to you. So, why did this happen to me? What is the purpose? I find myself wondering if I’m doing it right. If I’m living life in the right way, then why is it that this happened? These answers I may never really know.
The emotions I’m feeling and thoughts running through my mind are so contradictive to one another, yet so raw and real. One moment I’m scared, because I don’t want to experience what I went through ever again and I don’t want anyone else to be hurt. The next moment I’m angry at myself for allowing a person to have the power to take away so much from my life. The next moment I’m missing the friend I once had. Then I feel guilty for going to the police and making him pay for what he did. The next second I’m realizing that none of this is my fault. As you can imagine, I’m overwhelmed. Most of these days I’ve been doing everything I can to not completely fall apart.
And on top of that, I can’t even handle being in my own home. The place that, at one time, made me feel free and cry tears of happiness and relief is now a place that brings me so much anxiety and pain. Two years ago, it took every bit of fight in me to be able to get a mortgage on my own and to build myself up to be strong and successful. Walking into my home on Tuesday, March 22nd broke my heart in a way that I didn’t know it could break. Looking into my shattered computer screen, I felt so numb. Blood smears surrounded my things and was dripping down my walls. The blood of a man that I thought cared about me. How could I be so naïve? I turned away from the broken screen and I instantly felt empty. I couldn’t even cry. It wasn’t the material things that I cared about at all. I could lose every material thing and it would be okay. I just couldn’t fathom why someone that supposedly cared about me and thought of me as a great friend could want to destroy me and my home like that. Even though he put a knife through my television screen, it feels as though it went through my heart.
All I’m trying to focus on now is figuring out how to live my life and find a new normal. There is no directions manual that I can read to tell me how to live this out. I’m doing the best that I know how to do. I’m trying to balance taking back my power and living as normally as I can, yet being safe and smart at the same time. None of this is easy.
The judicial system has failed me, along with so many other domestic abuse survivors. Tell me why victims of this abuse have to walk around constantly glancing over their shoulders, while the abuser gets out on bail free like nothing ever happened? Tell me why, as a victim, we can’t speak our truth without others trying to shut us up? Tell me why society doesn’t easily allow us to take back our power? Tell me why the abuser has all the help in the world from the system, but the victims have to fight to have their voices heard? There is so much that needs to be changed and improved upon.
As I continue to walk forward, I know that Jesus will pick up all my pieces and slowly put me back together. I don’t understand why this happened to me, but I understand that God always has a plan. I have to believe that He must know that I am strong enough to carry this burden. Some moments I don’t know how I will keep moving, but I keep focusing on just taking one small step at a time. One day I’ll wake up and realize that my nightmare was actually a dream. One day.
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