Denial is far easier for the day, but it is a slow death. It takes your breath, your life — your years away from from you. It keeps you enslaved to people who will not love you, who will leave you and you stay confused as to why.
From the book A Prisoner by No Crime of My Own,
Chapter 7 – Phantom Pain
“The problem is that we always look for the missing piece of the puzzle instead of finding a place for the one in our hand.”
– Alina Radoi
. . .
I’ve been asked through the years, as many abused women are, why did I stay seventeen years? That isn’t a difficult question to answer. We met as most teenagers do, out driving our local streets. He told me history about his own abusive upbringing, and I was thrown into the role I had known so well – fix it for him and he was going to fix me, too.
He also had a loving side to him. One night, before we married, we were lying on his bed, in each other’s arms, the radio played softly in the background — a song by Seafood Momma (who later changed their name to Quarter Flash) came on: “I’m Gonna’ Harden My Heart and Swallow My Tears.” He told me that every time he heard that song, he thought of me. Again, he saw my pain – or at least I believed he did. I had so little in life that any kind of acknowledgment felt momentous.
Not long after I married, unburdened from my father’s watchful control, odd things happened. When we’d make love, tears would stream down my face – tears I couldn’t stop. I would just turn my face to the side and wait for the act to be over. Richard accepted it. He may have used it against me, but I didn’t see it that way then.
In 1985, our first child was born. A beautiful, brown-skinned baby girl. We named her Brittany Lynne. She ignited in me a love I had never known. I cherished her and it gave me a reason to live. Brooke Ashley came along in 1988. She was a creature of beauty with a delightful disposition. My heart was full.
It was after Brooke’s birth that a first real memory of abuse came to me. Brittany would have been close to three years old. The time my abuse likely began.
. . .