22 years. I gave him 22 years.
When people ask me about the hardest part of recovering from 22 consecutive years of any and every kind of domestic violence, I tell them, that it’s not the slap to the face or getting dragged down the hallway. It’s convincing yourself that you are worthy of love. Even if it’s the love that you give to yourself.
In 2005, at 11 years old, I laid in bed with a letter in hand, ready to take the life that I had no real understanding of. 11 years old. I had it all planned out. From the letter, to the outfit I was going to wear. Some people will tell you that suicide is selfish and that life is always far better than death. But for some of us, death seems far better than life. But I survived the attempted suicide. I wasn’t supposed to be here. But I guess I still had some things to do.
In 2015, right as I was entering into my final year of college, the man that abused me for 22 whole years silently moved out of our home, while I waited quietly at a hotel across the street. I thought that this would be it. Life was going to get better. And it was going to get better as soon as I walked through the door of my newly emptied home. But it wasn’t better. And it wasn’t going to get better. At least not yet. I quickly found myself on my bedroom floor, sobbing & nursing my wounds, looking to make amends with my past, confront my future, and restore hope and dignity to a woman whose ego was beaten for 22 consecutive years. And while my first instinct was to attempt in every possible way to desperately scrub every memory that was seared into my brain… the countless nights when I spent hours hiding on the floor of a parked car in our garage, or those days when I’d barricade my bedroom door, shaking from fear. The memory of a six year old Anna, holding her baby brother while a solid wooden ottoman was hurled in my direction. And those nights when I would cry on the bathroom floor because I felt something real and thinking and fearing that a man that I care about would look me in the eyes, and see beyond what, from all outward appearances, was a woman who seemed to have it all together… But I later discovered that it wasn’t about erasing the memories. I was once told that "we don't seek the painful experiences that hew our identities, but we seek our identities in the wake of our painful experiences." I was awakened to the idea that adversity breeds the power to oppose it, and this ultimately brought me to think that it was this that forged my own personal identity. It took the adversity, understanding the adversity, and applying it to the way by which it has affected my internal dialogue that I began to understand the mechanism of trials. It took understanding for me to eliminate the sadness, anger, and negative emotions I was experiencing as a byproduct of my experiences. And it was this that ultimately expanded my ideas and brought me to have a deeper and more robust understanding of the human condition.
For 25 years, I found myself desperately trying to put myself back together, piece by piece, reminding myself that it is a process with a trajectory, but no real end. As I find that there is never an end, or a completion to a journey of achieving happiness or fulfillment. For 25 years, I wasted so much time begging. Begging my mother to leave. Begging for even a semblance of what love looked or felt like. I grew tired of living my life like I was begging, waiting for an expectation to come to fruition, and anticipating this revolutionary thought or wisdom that would occur as byproduct of adversity. So I stopped begging. We’re always told that life is short. But it is not that life is short, but rather that we waste so much of it. And so often do I find that my biggest fear is wasting my time and starting to live my life, just as it is about to end.
If there is a piece of advice that I can offer to a young woman, it is to find comfort, solace, and peace in solitude. You can't buy, achieve or date serenity and peace of mind. It’s an inside job. And it’s not a 9-5. It’s a job that runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year. You have to face your own fears, answer your own questions, and supply your own love. From the moment I opened my eyes, my only understanding and exposure to companionship were toxic power struggles and justification processes. The thought that, ‘he says that he loves me… but his actions prove otherwise.’ I looked at every shitty situation, every toxic person I brought into my life. I justified shit behavior because my default thought was, ‘surely, this isn’t what he really means.’ And I allowed myself to be pulled into a vicious cycle of forgiving transgressions.. failing to understand that forgiveness isn’t always about forgiving another person. Sometimes, it’s about forgiving yourself. Because I believed it. Every hurtful word, every action, and every misstep. I believed it. Every single time.
Children of domestic violence are three times more likely to repeat the cycle of abuse. And growing up in an abusive household is the most significant predictor of whether or not someone will be engaged in domestic violence later in his or her life. After 3 generations and 25 years, I said no more. With black eyes and broken bodies, 3 generations of battered women and children turned our experiences into personal narratives of strength, courage, wisdom, and triumph.
In August of 2015, I was given a second shot at life. And if there is a promise that I have made, it is to love myself enough and to know that I am always going to be enough. Because sometimes the hardest part about the recovery is convincing yourself that you are worthy of love. Even if it’s the love that you give to yourself.
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If you or a loved one are survivors of domestic violence, realize that you are not a statistic. You are worth the recovery. DOMESTIC VIOLENCE INCLUDES BUT IS NOT LIMITED TO PHYSICAL, SEXUAL, VERBAL, AND EMOTIONAL ABUSE.
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