Category: #savingme

#savingme

#savingme

by lunaiswritingLeave a Comment on #savingme

“Hey, kid! Get me some water!”

A surly, old man shouts from his table. I fill a jug and hurry to serve him before Father gives me the stink eye. I haven’t been performing well lately. Not in school. Not here, in the restaurant. Father owns a small restaurant and earns just enough to provide for the family and to quench his thirst for alcohol. Mom manages the restaurant most of the time because of Father’s incessant hangovers.

Someone shakes my arm and pulls me out of my reverie. Father. He looks at me with eyes full of angst and a wildness that comes from inebriation. I have good reasons to be afraid of him but I try to hide the dread whenever I can. I lower my head and walk to the nearest table, throw away the mushy leftovers from the plates and wipe the table. From table to table, I serve the food and clear the old plates, adding them to the pile I’ll have to wash later. Maybe, Mom will offer to help.

I wish I could get out of here.

I’m cleaning another table when Father calls at the top of his voice,”Patrice, come here!” My pulse quickens and I scurry towards him, legs shaking. What did I do now?

“What. Is. This?” Father asks with an eerie calmness which masks the wrath behind each word. I look up to see what he is pointing at: a greasy table with an oily plate on it and a couple waiting to sit there. I clean the table as swiftly as I can and apologize to the customers for the delay. They sit down, grunting and begin to skim through the menu. My eyes slowly creep up to see my fathers’ and his look of resentment says it all.

He’ll deal with me later. Later when he is drunk and when his anger gets the better of him. He’ll probably hit me and then I’ll cry myself to sleep. It has happened twice this week.

The sun is emitting its last rays and fear grips me as the evening wears on. My hands tremble when I serve the dishes.

I don’t want the day to end. I don’t want the day to end.

Father is nowhere to be seen. He must have gone to the liquor shop nearby. I shudder at the very thought and bury myself with work to prevent my mind from wandering. Mom is preparing the dishes along with Nancy, the other cook. Mom has often tried to stop Father from drinking but that just agitates him more. Mom and Father fight a lot and once, I’d even seen him slap her during an argument. That was the first time I thought about escaping.

Father returns with a bottle of liquor and I gulp involuntarily as my heart starts racing. I serve the dish to the last customer in the restaurant, hands trembling. I accidentally drop ketchup on him and a deep red botch covers his shirt. Fury takes over the customer and he yells profanities at me. To him, I’m just a stupid clumsy kid who can’t get a job done right. And maybe, I am. Father glowers at me and apologizes to the customer for my impertinent behavior.

As soon as the customer leaves, Father clasps my wrist and drags me to our house adjacent to the restaurant. Mom hurries behind us, begging him to stop and calm down.

“Unlock the damn door!” He growls at her. Mom wails as she opens the door, pleading him to be calm.

Once we’re inside, he pushes me forward, takes a swig from the bottle and slams it on the table. Mom pulls me aside by her hand protectively. With clammy hands and tears sluicing down her cheeks, she weeps uncontrollably. Father yanks me away from her and my only protection is gone. I feel…vulnerable. I don’t want to cry myself to sleep.

He shouts incoherently, “What was that, Patrice?!” I stand speechless, motionless.

The couple could have chosen another table. I want to say it. But I can’t.

Coward.

“What the hell was that, you stupid girl?!”

I try hard to stop the tears from falling. I fail. I know what awaits me and I brace myself before it comes. He raises his hand and strikes my face.

A moment. Just a moment of intense, physical pain and a lifetime of haunting nightmares. A lifetime of suppressing the hurt and distress. Excruciating pain and fierce revulsion boils inside me. Blood rushes to my cheeks and tears obscure my vision, blocking my throat and wetting my face. Mom’s shrieks fill the silence and I just can’t lower my head anymore. I raise my head and glare right into his malicious eyes.

Father slaps me hard again and I fall to my knees, dark strands covering my face. I let out ugly sobs and look around wildly for the door. What am I thinking? I can’t run from home! Can I? How much of a coward can I be?

I try so hard to compose myself, setting my jaw and clenching my fists and I raise my face to look at him. He is about to hit me again when Mom stops him. He yells at her loudly but fatigue washes over me and I can’t hear a word he says. My abdomens feel hollow and my chest has become a tight burden. The tears block my eyes and the last thing I see before passing out is Father raising his hand again. But I don’t feel the strike. All I feel is the need to escape.

This story is inspired by real incidents although it may have been exaggerated (yeah, I have a flair for drama). In situations like these, we tend to blame our parents’ behaviour on the stressful situations they are in but that is no excuse for the way they treat you. From pressurizing kids to hurting them physically, child abuse makes the child’s self esteem fall down. Well, I’ve been in times when I hated this life but at these exact moments, all I needed was that push to keep me going. That push to tell me that maybe, when I grow up, I can live somewhere fancy in LA, earn a lot and help other kids going through the same problems. That when I grow up, I can tell them that they can survive too, just like I did. You can’t escape the damage that life gives you. But you can be mended and can mend others.

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#savingme is the column where abuse victims can publish their experiences just to let go and find comfort and support. Maybe it doesn’t feel like much but just publishing your story for others to read makes you strong. You can send your story about the abuse you went through to savingmestory@gmail.com and you can choose if you want it to be anonymous or not. More details here. 

#savingme

Abused children’s lullaby

by lunaiswriting15 Comments on Abused children’s lullaby

Hey there little sleepy girl!
Tonight daddy didn’t fall asleep on the curb.
He is home, punching mom, breaking stuff, cursing hard.
Be a good girl as mommy said and hide under
the bed, hope you won’t end up dead.

Hey there little sleepy boy!
One day you will grow so strong. So strong you will
defend them all, like a superhero punch daddy through the wall.
Be a good boy as mommy said and pray daddy won’t
fall asleep with a burning cigarette in his hand.

Hey there little sleepy kids!
Your window is on the second floor, easy to jump, maybe
break one bone. You’ve already done it twice, what’s some more?
Now close your eyes like mommy said, tomorrow is a brand new
day for you to listen mommy explain how again she fell down the stairs.

By Luna

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#savingme is the column where abuse victims can publish their experiences just to let go and find comfort and support. Maybe it doesn’t feel like much but just publishing your story for others to read makes you strong. You can send your story about the abuse you went through to savingmestory@gmail.com and you can choose if you want it to be anonymous or not. More details here. 

#savingme

#savingme – Hammer to the knee

by lunaiswritingLeave a Comment on #savingme – Hammer to the knee

Hammer to the knee. I guess it’s the best descriptive title I can use to relate the two. One day hard to actually remember if it was spring or summer. I do remember being in shorts and a tee shirt. Living in NYC it’s either Spring or Summer if I am wearing shorts. Fall was too cold and obviously, winter does not call for shorts.  It was definitely daylight outside and I had not gone out so still late morning, not before noon that’s for sure. I remember walking into the kitchen from what seems to be the front door area, which also happens to be by the coat closet where I usually place my shoes. Before this, I do not remember much. Where was I coming from?. Either the living room or maybe I had just returned from taking out our day before trash.

None the less, I walked into the biggest surprise in my life. My moms. She was frantic. Angry wasn’t even close to how she was expressing her emotions right then and there. Before I can even muster a word, a screaming question of how could you? came bellowing out of her esophagus. What are you a monster? was the next overly loud question. Who the fuck do you think you are?. How could you?. These very questions seem to fuel a rage that presented itself in the thickest of air imaginable. You can seriously feel the static, ambient, energy flowing in the air.
I still had not managed to get a single word out. Before I could even gasp those questions would stop me from interjecting. When I did finally ask, What are you talking about? My mother lost it. She reached over to the broomstick and begun swinging at me in full force. I was just about thirteen years young and was a few inches taller than my mom already. She was four feet eleven inches tall. During her baseball tryouts as I call it now, She went for the home run swing and for some very stupid maybe even macho, borderline egotistical, reason I defended myself by raising my arm, to block the broomstick, from hitting me yet again.
What a mistake that was. Mother went ballistic. SHe looked around the kitchen super fast, with peering eyes. She found yet something else. The Mop. It wasn’t a wood handle. No. This was the aluminum type. The very type of instrument she needed. You see as she regained her desire to beat the living shit out of me she went for the op handle. Again the rage went on and it was now a metal pipe that hits me a few times over.
Much to my Mother’s surprise this time I stand there and allow her to release all she has and I’ll just take it. She wailed at me again and again, until the mop handle bent during impact across my arm. Oh Boy! that just turned a campfire into a burning pile of logs at the beach. My mother immediately looked at her broken weapon and this time it seemed as if she was bewildered.
I, of course, am rubbing my arms, trying to reach my back for sensitivity levels and in hopes to rub the pain.
Get out, is the next set of words that leave my Mother’s scorching mouth. I try and ask what is wrong? what did I do? and again those words. Get out screaming get the fuck out. She starts reaching again. This time for what looks like the utility draw we keep in the kitchen. Yep! that was it. She opens the drawer and reaches in, as her arm is now sliding out I can see she had a firm hold of the hammer, in her hand. Get the fuck out you monster. And she swings it right to my head.
Her arm goes in full motion behind her back and up toward the ceiling. The hammer is now fully extending her arm and coming down right at me. Only move to make is one very quick motion to fall backward. I make the attempt to jump back. My feet lift, off the floor. My head and upper body start to tilt back and I am going in a backward falling motion. My left knee decided it wanted to race the right knee so, up higher in the air it is over the right knee, that it feels the impact of a cold steel hammer come pounding down on it.
The most amount of pain in the shortest amount of time was going through my head. I was down. In the fetus position, holding my left knee for dear life. At least that is what it felt like. It wasn’t then and there that I came to find out what I had done so horribly wrong that I deserved such brutal actions toward me. It wasn’t even me. In all my years I never once treated a female any less of a Lady. Never once. Not even my sisters. Not any of them not any one of them.
Thank you, my uncle, for assuring me with your actions, that I will never bring harm to a Woman.

You’ll get to know me more.  Chino61.

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#savingme is the column where abuse victims can publish their experiences just to let go and find comfort and support. Maybe it doesn’t feel like much but just publishing your story for others to read makes you strong. You can send your story about the abuse you went through to savingmestory@gmail.com and you can choose if you want it to be anonymous or not. More details here. 

#savingme

#savingme – A Knife in the Heart

by lunaiswriting3 Comments on #savingme – A Knife in the Heart

This isn’t going to be your typical abuse story. It’s something that I try not to talk about too
much anymore actually. The past is behind me and I try to leave it there. I’ve never actually
written about this experience in detail on my own blog yet, because it represents such a dark and
depressing time in my life. I wasn’t sure if there would be value in sharing this sort of life
experience. Yet, alas, here I am.

So, where shall I begin?

I’m 30 years old right now, but when I was 22, I had taken off on a backpacking trip for a few
years which took me through New Zealand and Australia. When I was in Australia living and
working out of a hostel, I met a French woman and we began to date. We traveled together for
about a year and by the end of our travels she hinted that she would like to come to Canada to be
with me. I was head over heels in love at the time, and so this seemed like a no-brainer for me.
I’ve never been afraid of a little hard work and immigrating someone to my country didn’t
frighten me all that much. I felt like we could handle anything if we handled it together.
So, I stayed with her and her family for a few months in France before coming back to Canada
where we tried to establish ourselves. I helped her to find work and I was able to find work
myself. She started off in Canada with a Working Holiday Visa, so she was able to work
temporarily for a year while we began the immigration process for her. Our plan was to get her
residence visa and then after a few years of saving, to move out West to BC, or so I thought.
When I bought a vehicle, I allowed her to use it most days while I rode my bicycle to work.
When she couldn’t work, I supported us on my meager income. Cracks began to show in our
relationship shortly after arriving in Canada. I felt like her attitude towards me had changed. This
wasn’t a glamorous life that we were living in comparison to our travels, and I could feel that she
wasn’t happy about it. We were also beginning to fight a lot more frequently, but I figured this
just had to do with all the stresses that we were going through. I had noticed a few strange things
happening on her end, but I tended to overlook these issues.

Like, one day I had noticed that she was part of a dating site because her email had been left
open on our computer. When I confronted her about it, she told me that she was trying to surprise
me by finding another woman for some experimental fun for us. I’m not sure why I believed that
at the time, because it was never mentioned again, but I preferred to believe that then the other
possibilities I suppose. There were also a few nights that she would go out with people she had
met at work and stayed out until early the next morning without giving me any updates. She
would just say that she had fallen asleep while she was out. It was incredibly frustrating and
stressful to me, but again, I chose to believe her. Hell, I even married her. I figured no matter
what might happen, if we love each other enough, then we could overcome any obstacle. I was
committed.

I allowed her to have male coworkers over to our apartment for drinks while I was at work
because if I were to raise a concern about it, she would say that I must not trust her. So, I tried to
trust more. I thought highly of her and I figured, if there were problems in that relationship, then
it surely must be my fault. We lived together for a few years and struggled romantically. I began
to really start to dislike the way that she had been treating me some days, but I was still
attempting to salvage our relationship. She had threatened to pack her bags and leave multiple
times when criticized for her behavior. It was an emotionally manipulative tactic which only lost
its power on me after the day that I agreed she should leave. I had even offered to give her some
of my savings to get her started again back home if that made things easier. At that moment, she
stopped threatening to leave, and cried about how she doesn’t want to leave Canada. It messed
with my head because she had so many complaints about Canada and living here, while she
boasted about how great life was in France, telling me that she sacrificed everything for me, and
yet now, even when she supposedly was at her wits end with me, she didn’t want to go back?
I was growing more and more skeptical of this relationship. At times I just wanted to be out, but
I doubted myself frequently and I allowed myself to be manipulated. When she finally received
her Permanent Resident status in Canada, I helped to get her a job with me at my factory. My life
at work slowly grew to be a living hell as she flirted with most of the men there and began to
spread subtle slander about me to justify doing it. Within 6 months we were “taking a break” to
find ourselves.

In the last 6 months that we were living together, she had told me that she was pregnant one day,
and then the next, that she had lost it. She said that the hospital had told her that she could never
have children again, which I thought was strange because how do they figure that out in a single
visit? She knew that I had wanted children so I suspect she was hoping that this would push me
away. She had also been seeing a friend for months that I had never met, once a week on the
same day. I was told that this friend was not allowed to meet me for the longest time because she
had a jealous boyfriend that didn’t like her being around other men. So – okay, I accepted that.
After a few months she said that this friend had been assaulted by her boyfriend and ended up in
the hospital, which seemed insane to me and I was very concerned for this friend. I wanted to go
and meet her, but now she was “too afraid of men”. After a few more weeks she had told me that
this friend of hers had died in the hospital, and afterwards that she was moving in with her dead
friend’s mother while we work on ourselves.

I had been telling these stories to some of the people that I trusted at work, and one old guy that I
was friends with used to love reading the news. When I told him about this assault, this girl’s
death and the funeral that my ex had attended, he began to search the news for any info that he
could find on it and found nothing at all. No police statements issued to try and find the murderer
of a young woman. No obituaries in the news, or any notices by the funeral home for this girl’s
passing which my ex claimed to have attended. When my ex was confronted about these facts,
she just made up a bunch of excuses for why these things were not available to the public. She
refused to tell me this girl’s last name and we pretty much stopped talking entirely afterwards
because she ghosted me. The prior 5 years of my life had been a complete and utter lie.
I learned soon afterward, that she was dating a co-worker of mine, and my experience at work
began to be awful. I had felt like people were treating me differently and I wasn’t sure what was
being told to others. I also spoke to one of her old coworkers from her first job in Canada and
found out that she had been cheating on me since before we were married. She had also been
telling her coworkers there that I was cheating on her in order to justify those actions. My head
was spinning from all of these lies.

We divorced. I entered therapy and eventually I had to leave my workplace because she
wouldn’t. I was never able to get an admission of guilt from her or any sign of remorse for her
actions. I was just used and tossed aside after I had served my purpose.

She now has a kid with her partner from this new relationship. I don’t speak with her at all, but I
had noticed it because of Facebook. After all that I had experienced with her, I’m glad that it’s
not my child. It’s been about 3 years now since the split happened, but it has greatly affected my
personal relationships – especially the romantic ones. I have a great deal of trouble with trusting
most women anymore. I’ve been improving my ability to trust, but I’m always a little suspicious
now.

In ways, the experience had changed me positively as well. I don’t take a lot of crap anymore. I
made sure that all my relationships were two-way streets after that, and I had cut many folks out
of my life who had taken more from me then they had ever given. I vowed to cut toxicity out of
my life and that included quite a few toxic people, including members of my own family. I also
began to chase after my dreams in a stubborn way without concerning myself with the opinions
of others. I grew to become a stronger individual in my own right, albeit wounded and with trust
issues. It’s taken it’s toll on me, but I’ve never given up.

Abuse doesn’t only occur to women and emotional abuse can be very subtle in relationships
hiding just beneath the surface. The only warning that I can offer to others who may be in a
situation like that which I experienced, is this – Listen to your heart and notice how your partner
makes you feel on a day to day basis. If you are feeling depressed, unloved, with very low self esteem and you had not normally felt that way before, then leave! Don’t spend too much time
overthinking it and trying to justify it or blaming yourself. Life is too short to be wasted on those
who don’t really care about how they make you feel. We must first learn to love ourselves,
before we can expect to end up with someone who will love us like we deserve as well.

My name is Mathew, and I host Blog of the Wolf Boy. I generally write works of fiction and
poetry, as well as posts on motivation, health, writing, travel and opinion. Thanks for taking the
time to read my story.

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#savingme is the column where abuse victims can publish their experiences just to let go and find comfort and support. Maybe it doesn’t feel like much but just publishing your story for others to read makes you strong. You can send your story about the abuse you went through to savingmestory@gmail.com and you can choose if you want it to be anonymous or not. More details here. 

#savingme, Poems

Poem #219

by lunaiswriting2 Comments on Poem #219

He wasn’t backed against one wall
but against four because they were
closing in on him. Those hands that
were strong enough to beat his children
aren’t strong enough to keep the curtain up,
to continue the charade.
The bruises and the wounds are being exposed,
his time is up, the silence came to an end.
by: Luna

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#savingme is the column where abuse victims can publish their experiences just to let go and find comfort and support. Maybe it doesn’t feel like much but just publishing your story for others to read makes you strong. You can send your story about the abuse you went through to savingmestory@gmail.com and you can choose if you want it to be anonymous or not. More details here. 
#savingme

Dealing with Trauma Flashback – repost

by lunaiswriting11 Comments on Dealing with Trauma Flashback – repost

Certain smells, spaces, situations or people tend to bring up bad feelings we thought we had forgotten about. Most people who went through abuse deal with this problem on the regular basis especially if they just left the toxic relationship or moved away from the abusive parent who left them with a serious trauma.

These bad feelings and flashback can manifest in different ways. Some of the ones I experienced myself are running out of air, losing my touch with reality, feeling like I can’t move, paralyzing shivers up and down my spine, excessive sweating, stuttering etc. One of the worse things I still deal with are my nightmares that happen on a regular basis. The problem with these flashbacks isn’t only that they make you live through your pain again but they can put you in serious danger. If you are in a situation where you could get hurt but your mind has a flashback and paralyzes your body you are in an even bigger danger because you can’t defend yourself.

In my 22 years of life I have been abused physically for roughly eleven years but the psychological abuse continued despite my father not being around because my mind was still trapped and going over everything I experienced as a child. I learned to control it a little bit but there are still certain triggers that give me flashbacks. Some of them are being in the presence of a man who reeks of alcohol, someone putting their hands near my throat…

With time I started to use my breathing to cope with these flashbacks and to calm myself when I wake up from a nightmare. Whenever we get agitated our breathing changes, so in order to ease your mind you need to get back to your normal breathing pattern. Try to even out your inhales and your exhales. Breathe in for 3 second and breathe out for three seconds. It’s that simple and it helps you center your mind. You just need to focus on your breath, on the sensation of air entering and exiting your body. As soon as you get your inhales and exhales evened out you will notice a slight release in your body. Your muscles will get relaxed, your mind will get clear and that pressure on your chest will slowly fade away.

This isn’t something you can accomplish perfectly in one take. It took me years of even reminding myself to breathe when I start having flashbacks and panicking. The other thing that helps a lot is meditation. I think it isn’t even necessary to state all the positive sides of mediation because you already know most of them.

When you get flashback and feel paralyzed, you have the feeling like the abuser is still controlling you. He or she is not doing it, you mind is! You need to become aware of the power your mind has over you and you need to develop techniques to calm it down and to rise above what your mind tells your body to feel.

Remember: Transform pain into strength and you will be invincible.

#savingme

Should I Forgive my Abuser – Repost

by lunaiswriting38 Comments on Should I Forgive my Abuser – Repost

Today I decided to do one of my longer posts in which I share my opinions on the subject of abuse, especially domestic abuse. I’ve written about it in some of my posts and I shared pieces of my domestic abuse story on this blog. One of my goals in life is actually to find a way to help abused women and children and to also open people’s eyes about what is abuse and how to fight it properly.

It’s always hard for me to write about this subject because I’m still on my journey of dealing with my past and my experience with domestic abuse so I don’t post that often about it. For those of you who are new to this blog or maybe haven’t read my posts about it, just to sum up – I was abused by my father. He got mentally ill during the war, got PTSD, became an alcoholic and suffered from an identity disorder. The abuse went on for roughly eleven years and he ended up in jail and is currently in a facility where he is being taken care of.

Now that you all are up to speed, let’s get on with today’s subject – Should you forgive your abuser? The answer to this is yes. You should forgive everyone who has done you harm but this situation is particularly difficult because abuse leaves a lot of scars on our soul and our body. I, myself, suffer from nightmares related to the years of abuse despite being already 22 years old and despite not seeing my father for years. An experience such as this one just has a tendency to stick with us forever and, even though you might not see it, this is not a bad thing.

The reason why it’s hard to forgive our abusers is because they rarely say they are sorry. Most of them are oblivious of their actions and consequences of their actions and believe they haven’t done anything wrong so it’s hard to think about forgiveness when you haven’t even heard the word “Sorry” coming out of their mouths. The reason why you need to forgive them is your inner peace. That’s the goal of coping with abuse. You need to find the strength to forgive someone who might not even be sorry just for the sake of preserving and healing your soul and mind.

I will write on my own example. To this day I still have many bad feelings relating to my father but I found a way to be already halfway done with forgiving him for everything he has done. I used to say to myself that he is ill and that deep down he does feel sorry about his actions, but it was hard for me to believe it when I would get flashbacks of him beating up my mother or me escaping through the window of my house because he threatened to kill me. As time passed by I realized that I have to be the bigger person or I will never be able to escape my past. Every now and then I pray for him. That’s right, I pray for the man, for my own father who abused me just because I have grown enough to realize that he doesn’t perceive reality in a way that I do. I also realized that he probably denies everything he has done because it’s a defense mechanism. On some level his mind is blocking the horrible acts he has committed to protect him from facing himself. I began to forgive him so that I could find peace and put my past to rest. On some strange level I found some positive sides to what he has put me through. I don’t want you to think I’m weird for doing it, I promise I will explain everything in a different post.

By wishing the best for him, hoping that the universe will give him the strength to face himself one day and see all of the things he has done wrong I began to discover serenity. You need to rise above the situation in order to move on and you can’t do that without forgiving the person that abused you. If you forgive them, you will first benefit yourself and after the hell you’ve been through you deserve it.

Holding on to abuse and hating the person that did it to you can only lead to further problems in your life. You could develop serious trust issues or become unable to establish a healthy love relationship with someone (I know I have my troubles with this). Step back, take your time and discover within you what it is that you need to do in order to forgive your abuser. Don’t think about him or her, don’t think about anyone else except yourself. This is actually where one of my favorite quotes applies: First, put your own oxygen mask. This sentence just resonates on so many different levels, despite it being a warning on a safety video on planes. Give yourself air, fix yourself, heal yourself and without noticing it you will forgive the person that did you wrong and it will be the most liberating experience of your life.