2 Years Free: A Practice in Gratitude

I was having a shitty morning. One of those comedy of errors mornings when you run from one bus stop to another and another and miss the bus by 10 seconds each time. Eventually I landed on the floor of the light rail, sitting dejectedly and about ready to just give up and go home.

Waiting for the train, I opened up Facebook like the social media zombie that I am, and got a notification about a “memory” from a year ago. Because, you know, “Facebook cares about the memories that I share.” Right.

More often than you would imagine, these end up being a photo of me and someone I am no longer close to, resulting in a twinge of sadness or a rush of unexpected reminiscence. But today my notification brought me something beautiful.

It reminded me that I am two years free of my violent ex today. That’s 24 months/104 weeks/730 days.

This second year was a lot easier than the first.

Within the first year of experiencing DV, the majority of survivors become extremely depressed (check), cannot get out of bed (check), lose their job (check), and lose friends who aren’t willing to deal with the emotional baggage (check).

The women I met who have been through domestic violence situations (or are still in them) are incredibly resilient and courageous. They come from all walks of life and live with very different circumstances. Some were abused physically, some financially, some mentally. Many had their lives threatened. Most have kids with their abusers and thus have to deal with those fuckers on a regular basis. But every single one of them possesses a will to fight back against the slow and methodical erasure that comes from living with an abuser.

One of my survivor friends sent me a meme that was so simple and yet so profound that it blew me away. It said something along the lines of: “Every day, I wake up grateful that you aren’t here to ruin it for me.”

Damn right. I am lucky that I could get out – but I am also brave and strong for knowing that I deserve better. I am grateful for this strength and the people who surrounded me with love and shelter back then, and who continue to support me now that I’m back to “normal.”

I have a great career, fabulous friends, a wonderful family, and I live in a beautiful place. I’m physically fitter than ever and emotionally stronger than I’ve ever been before. Although I still fall into the same old trap of feeling unworthy at times, I have better tools to deal with these thoughts now.

Most of all, I’ve given up trying to please others as much as I used to, or doing things because I feel like I’m “supposed to.” I do things that I want to do, because they feel right. I date who I want, write what I want, dress how I like, and say what feels meaningful to me. I do my best to let go of people who don’t respect me and relationships that don’t serve me. I hold the love of my family and friends in my heart.

I’m truly grateful for all that I’ve been given, all that I’ve worked for, and the possibilities that lie ahead. Thank you for sharing this journey with me ❤

Why I Haven’t Written, and Why This Can’t Continue

I haven’t written in a long time. I haven’t been able to.

Every time I considered starting an article or researching a new topic, I stopped myself. Instead of the intrigue and passion that I usually feel, all I found was a stinging, bitter pain.

Because I was hurting; because I was afraid.

Writing is usually like therapy for me – it allows me to vent to the world and at the same time to no one at all. If I end up writing something worthwhile, fantastic. If all I get is a sore back from hunching over my laptop and a sappy piece of nonsense that no one would ever want to read, so be it.

But for the last month, I have avoided my laptop like the plague.

Where did this pain come from? And why was it so hard to get past?

It originated with the very act of writing an article about something I care about. About something that I am so sure of that I could never have imagined the backlash that I received from expressing my beliefs – or that they could even have been interpreted the way that they were.

But as I was once told, intent is not always the same thing as effect.

The topic of the article that started it all? Self-protection through assault prevention techniques and self-defense.

The aftermath of a sexual assault is so complicated – the range of emotions  can jump from guilt to shame to anger to confusion and beyond; the reality of self-blame can be crippling; and the effect on a victim’s life is unquantifiable. Not only this, but every victim deals with and recovers from sexual assault in their own way. What is true for one person might be unthinkable for another. And no one – whether a survivor themselves or not – has the right to tell another person how they should feel in the wake of this horrendous crime.

Keeping this in mind, I tried to write my article in a way that would place blame solely on the perpetrator. I wanted to present ideas for self-protection and self-defense as possibilities for those who might find them worthwhile. Nowhere did I hint that if you eschew taking a self-defense class or find no use in my ideas it would be your fault if you were assaulted. I would never – could never – say, think or believe anything even close to that.

Others took my article differently. In fact, on the day of its publication, it caused a veritable scandal in the feminist community. I was harassed on Twitter, called a failure and a victim blamer, told that I epitomized the Patriarchy, and watched as my article was smashed to smithereens. In the opinion of the individuals making these comments, I was placing blame on victims of rape by offering ideas about prevention.

The piece was far from perfect. In fact, if I were to write it again, I would make an absolutely rigid point of trying to look at what I wrote from eyes different from my own. To read every last word from a completely different perspective. Maybe then I would have seen what these people saw.

And yet, I was also commended by the women’s self-defense community for writing it. I received emails, tweets, posts and texts from people who were as dismayed as I was about the reaction. A well-known, deeply respected self-defense instructor even wrote an article in The Hairpin about the whole mess (note: opinions in The Hairpin piece are strictly those expressed by Susan Schorn).

The thing is, it really was a huge, ugly mess. No one was to blame. It just kind of happened – and then exploded in a nasty way. But I am about as sensitive as they come (great quality in a writer, right? ha!). I was shattered. I cried for an entire day and went into bouts of depression every time I thought about it for a month afterward.

Not that I can’t take being criticized or called names. People criticize my opinions all the time, and I have been called some verrrry interesting things (especially by Men’s Rights Activists)! Generally, I welcome or endure it – to a point. I suppose the deeply reactive subject matter made everything different this time.

I felt…invalidated. Silenced. As if my experiences and beliefs could be overturned and expelled with a gust of wind.

The thing is, they can’t. Others don’t have to agree with me, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t hold true to my ideals. And more appropriate to this situation, others may not always see the intended message in my writing. There isn’t much that I can do about this except to keep moving forward, carefully, while trying to be sensitive to the feelings of the world around me.

This has been a huge lesson. And from where I stand today, it won’t stop me from writing in the future. My sadness and frustration are still there; I’ve just learned how to move beyond them and try to turn them into something more positive and healing. And that’s why I’m sitting at home writing a blog post on this rainy Friday night.

Because really – hiding my laptop behind the couch isn’t helping anyone, especially not myself.