"You Make It Sound So Easy To Leave An ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIP. Have you Survived One?"

"You make it sound so easy to leave an abusive relationship.

Have you survived one?

I have.

It nearly cost me my life and sanity to escape.

Beliefs like yours are part of the problem as they cause further OPPRESSION".

Ouch!

Kate's off-handed remark and her response to my seemingly innocent Facebook comment on breaking the generational curse of being shut down as a girl pierced my little author's heart like a spear.

Emotions raged within me.

But as I seethed, I also unearthed other feelings that I harboured deep inside endowed with something less than holiness.

I was vividly taken aback.

At first, I briefly responded with a short, yet succinct "Yes, I have" and left it at that.

I am a rebel but also an uncorrectable sage.

Despite my inborn impulsivity, wit and sarcasm I pick my fights wisely.

If I feel the opponent is not worth fighting against, I usually limit myself to uttering a few words just to let them know I have read their comment without engaging with its contents.

Still, I could feel the RAGE, the ANGER and RESENTMENT bubble up and boil deep inside me.

In the heat of the moment, I instantly deleted my original response and instead retaliated with:

"Yes, I have. In fact, I had to flee abusive situations many times..."

First, at the age of 5 when our drunk neighbour turned up with a BIG shiny knife wanting to kill my mummy.

I was the only WITNESS.

I was presented with an impossible choice of either:

• bearing the pain and responsibility of having my own mother murdered right before my own eyes at the age of 5.

OR...

• running to get help and being mauled alive by our other neighbour's vicious dog who on another occasion permanently mutilated my mother's calf (if my mum didn't wear high-rise leather boots that fateful day, most likely today she'd be an amputee now)

Growing up I witnessed my next door neighbour batter his dutiful, salt of the earth and obedient wife just because "the soup was too salty" (and maybe you have too!)

Then, after being slapped hard in the face I would watch her artificial front tooth fly past her flowery dress.

I witnessed her as in agony she dipped her little fingers, with her wedding ring still on, deep in the dirty soil, grab it trembling and still shivering, expertly place it back in her mouth where it belonged.

This was the bread and butter of our delightful next door neighbourhood and the sheer joys of living in a semi-detached house.

Except, this wasn't the first time the brutality happened.

Years later, in my 20s my roommate in a schizophrenic-like state of consciousness deflated my inflatable mattress and without mincing her words uttered the inevitable "I will kill you, b*tch!"

Even my older sister and her husband towering at 1.80m over my flatmate's petite 5'2'' frame who arrived at the "crime scene" couldn't quite wrap their heads around what their eyes saw.

Whether they liked it or not, they bore witness to a haze-like maniac state my former best friend now turned my assassin presented herself in.

As far as they were concerned she was possessed by evil forces.

They failed to recognise the person of kind-demeanour she once was (baby faces with deeply penetrating blue eyes can be so deceptive, right?)

It made absolutely no logical sense (in most cases, abuse hardly ever does).

I had to flee our shared one-bedroom student flat in an instant.

Police was called. The rest is history.

Yet, some know-it-all comes round giving her five cents, completely uncalled for, acting like an "entitled diva" with statements, such as:

"Beliefs like yours are part of the problem as they cause further OPPRESSION"

Now, is me NOT seeing myself or my next door neighbour or my mother as a VICTIM part of the oppression?

Despite what she'd like to think my beliefs are not part of the oppression.

I am not the problem here.

VICTIM MENTALITY is.

My body may be oppressed hundreds of times but my mind will forever be free.

Never a victim, always a victor.