The truth can set you free

Many, many years ago—26 of them in fact—I was sucker punched in the side of head by someone I was married to.

I was holding my four-year-old daughter at the moment he punched me, and even though it dropped me to the floor my child never left my arms.

Then he said he was going to get his shotgun and the words drowned my lungs in terror and I could not breathe. At the moment he left the room I leapt from the floor with my child, threw open the doorway to a flight of stairs that led outside, and ran like hell.

I was so terrified, that I left my other child—a one year old—playing on the kitchen floor because I didn’t think I had time to stop and pick her up.

I tore up those stairs like a steaming locomotive and burst into the front yard of the little suburb street of the city I lived in, and ran.

Instantly, he was behind me and I expected to be shot.

There was no one around to help me.

I made it to the neighbor’s front yard across the street before that man grabbed me, and when I turned around to face him he didn’t have a gun after all.

I pushed myself to the ground, determined to cement myself there on the grass, arms wrapped around my daughter, as I listened to that man shout abusive violations as he pulled at my shirt.

Within the hour I was back in the house with him trying silently to figure out what I’d done to deserve that.

I couldn’t walk straight for a week because that punch damaged my equilibrium and when I went to the doctor about it, I lied to him about how I got that way.

The man who punched me never apologized and I never talked to him about what he had done to me. I didn’t want to make him mad. I believed I could fix it by myself with magical thinking, library books on relationships, and by just keeping my mouth shut.

I never told anyone about that time nor any of the other times when he got really mad and said things that leveled my self esteem.

It took me another five years after that punch before I believed in myself enough and found the courage and made the choice to stand up for my children and myself and walk away.

When I finally made the decision to leave him, it got much harder for me than I ever imagined, but I kept my eyes ahead. I asked for help, told my truth, and learned just how amazing that village of support is that awaited me when I made a stand.

I think one of the hardest things in the world is watching another woman walk a really hard road, a situation unique in its own right and yet not so far off a path I once walked.  

I know all about magical thinking, second-guessing yourself, feeling helpless, alone, empty, and overwhelmed.

Change is hard, change is damn scary. “Stepping onto a brand, new path is difficult, but not more difficult than remaining in a situation which is not nurturing to the whole woman.”

I listen. I hear.

Keep going. Reach out. Ask for help.

Eyes ahead.

You are not alone.

And again.

Stand. Stand. Stand.