Surviving Phoenix Pt 1

This is a true story.

I patched up the holes on my body like the holes in the walls; a little concealer for spackle, a little sparkle in my eyeshadow since my eyes had none. But there was nothing that could patch up the shattered pieces of my heart. Those broken shards stabbed at my mind and my body creating an echo of pain that ricocheted within the chasm that had become me. That void was made from a loneliness and hopelessness mixed with fear and loathing - loathing of him, of my life and what it had become, and loathing of myself. If that chasm had a smell it would be that of a body in decay; that is, after all, exactly what I was. The makings of those holes echoed within it as if on repeat. They burned and twisted everything within me inside out and upside down until I could no longer see the world the right way up - as if I was looking through the reflection in a spoon amongst bits of cracked mirrors. It burned until I was nothing but ash and smoke inside, only the semblance of a person. I was a body. I had breath. But I wasn't alive. I thought he was going to kill me - it turns out breaking me, to him, was just as good as.

Perhaps I thought I was Belle in the beginning, believing the Beast could learn to love as I loved. Perhaps it was that the abuse wasn't like it is in the movies - violent and in your face and obvious from the beginning. Perhaps it was more like a mold in the walls of a freshly painted house, always there but growing unseen behind the surface, infesting everything behind the scenes with rot. You brush off the little things here and there not knowing that your lack of speaking up is acceptance enough to encourage it. And it festers and grows with your silence.

Moving states away from my family, losing my support network and leaving behind every comfort only made it worse. But I stayed silent.

His lack of success and financial struggles made it worse. I stayed silent.

He started to break things. I stayed silent.

He started to grab me. I stayed silent.

He would yell in my face. I became the root of every problem. Still I stayed silent.

My feelings were wrong. I shouldn't push his buttons. If only I didn't interrupt him. If I just thought different. If I would only blindly support his every move. If I'd just stop crying. Stop worrying. Stop being me. If only I'd just stay silent always.

Out of so much fear - fear over my children, fear of him what he would do if I tried to leave, fear of being able to make it as a single mother, fear that I had failed, fear that maybe it was really all my fault somehow... I stayed silent.

Out of embarrassment and shame and guilt I stayed silent.

I was silent until the silence was so loud in my ears I could not hear anything else. I was broken and the chasm that was within me had swallowed me whole.

If you or someone you love needs help or support - please call the national domestic violence hotline: 800.799.SAFE (7233)