I was reflecting on some things today and thought I would put some thoughts in here for others so you know that I do understand how you feel inside. The following is just a small part of one of my abusive marriages. I had two.

The years have come and gone since I went through abuse from a spouse, but sometimes I still wake at night  from a nightmare. To this day I sleep with a night light on in the bathroom and the stove light on in the kitchen. I used to love the nighttime-now years later I know why--it hid the bruises and the tears. But what it did not hide was the hurt inside my heart. Nothing can hide that. It did not hide my lack of self-respect or my lack of self worth.

In the daytime a turtleneck hid bruises on my neck well and the long sleeves hid the ones on my arms--when a turtleneck was not available--a kerchief worked wonders around my neck because it was in style
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The scars are still with my children and I never knew how much until one day my eldest daughter, in the heat of the moment, looked at me and said: "Did you not think I knew why you wore turtlenecks in July?"  "Did you think your really hid the truth from us?"  Yes, I did think that. I figured by not saying anything and pretending all was fine that the girls would not know what was going on. I was so wrong.

You cannot hide the truth from your children--they are too smart and they pick up on things more then you know. If you think you are protecting them you are not--you are only teaching them to keep quiet, when and if the day comes, to take abuse themselves!!  The only way you protect your children is to leave.

My daughters, now 35 and 38, sometimes say something that I never dreamed they knew or something I myself have forgotten or conveniently locked away in that closet in my mind, the one that holds the bad memories that I had such a bad time facing. 

I remember thinking one night that this was it--I was done. My husband at the time was holding a gun in my face and threatening to blow me away because I had told him I was going to leave. Finally, after begging him not to kill me and promising him I would not leave, he lowered the gun and pulled the trigger and the bullet went through the floor. My children slept in two bedrooms downstairs and it was only by the grace of God we were not above their bedrooms. However, I knew at that moment I had to get out of there no matter what. 

I waited until he left for work the next morning and took the truck and went to town to the welfare department and asked for help. They told me that they could not help me unless I had an apartment first...to prove that I had left my husband!  Well how do you get an apartment without money? Luckily I worked for a wonderful woman who rented apartments and she let me have one so I could say I had an address. Welfare helped me by giving me money to move in. I called a friend who owned a station wagon and she and I moved myself and my girls' stuff that day.

I lived in fear for a long time because he had told me that if I ever left he would find me and I would be sorry. I kept my curtains shut in the daytime and my doors locked tight. I had my children watched over on the way to and from school.I talked to the police but they said until he did something they could not get involved!!  As I said, there was not the help then that there is today.

Well time passed and finally I breathed a sigh of relief because I heard he moved away to the city, which was over an hour from where I had moved to. My life went on. But you know I was stupid enough to have put up with nearly 5 years of abuse before I finally got the courage to walk out.

Years where I would be forced to sleep on the floor if I did or said something that displeased him. Years where I felt his fist or foot if I did something that he did not approve of, after he had taken what he wanted. I know now that it is called spousal rape. I did not know that then.

There is much more but I will stop at telling this much for now.

Years of not giving a damn whether I lived or died but living because I had kids and they needed me. My kids are what kept me going. They were wonderful. 

I have spaces in my memories where I do not remember some things. The doctors told me it is because of the abusive traumas I went through. I can not be hypntized because the doctors say the fears are still to real even after all of these years and that it is best I stop trying to remember as it could reopen painful wounds in my mind.

I am telling you this because I hope that even if one person reading this is in the same situation that you will see that you can get out and you can go on. I am a survivor and you can be to.