Enough - speak up.

Enough - speak up. 
Part of my story- hope for myself and others. 

I have walked through a storm in which my voice was stifled, and emerged on the other side.

Disclaimer: This is highly exposing for me, but I am not ashamed or worried because exposure helps bring hope and healing to other people. You might need this like I did. It is something exactly like this that helped change my life. We share our stories to strengthen others who need to know that they aren't alone, that someone else understands, and to remind them of hope.
Anyway, read on if you please.

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Its a sad thing... losing your voice... a tragic thing. It is a deceptive, painful, betraying experience.
It feels almost like an alternate reality when you wake up and realize you are afraid to speak up for yourself. It feels like a ghost placing foggy impositions over you in more and more noticeable ways. Before you know it you've been silenced by the opposing voice that deems your thoughts as invalid and inferior. You don't ACTUALLY believe those things in your core, but you hear those words and they do harm, and they do stay. They intimidate, bully, and exhaust you until you've come to the place in which you weigh the expense of speaking up and being beaten down for it, or holding your tongue and enjoying lack of external conflict. The external conflict will subside while your internal war rages... this is not what you were meant to become... why don't you stand up for what you know you deserve? Why don't you stand your ground on what you know is not okay?

When I go back and look at my journal entries of that time period it all seems so obvious, but I suppose hindsight truly is 20/20. I wrote out things that I knew were red flags, were forcible impositions on my right to demand respect, were beckoning calls to myself to open my damn eyes and see that I was correct in my gut feelings. Something WAS wrong there, things DIDN'T make sense. These things WERE unusual. I was calling to myself, but I was so stricken with fear, confusion, and reactionary survival that I didn't listen to those things. All I could hear were the invalidations, the cruel words, the lies flung out simply out of another person's anger, defensiveness, and their unwillingness to deal with themselves. I learned quickly that some people willingly deal out harsh, apathetic behavior to others in place of themselves. It is easier to do that, plus it allows them to maintain their facade. I had known these things to be theoretically true, but never imagined that I would learn them first hand and obtain scars to prove it.

Since you're the only one who has the power to control your own voice it can be a dismal way of living- knowing you are giving up your thoughts and expressions in exchange for not being on someone else's verbal and emotional firing range. It is self-betrayal, self-disappointment, self-defeat... so many things that eat away at your feelings of self-worth. If you are anything like me or have gone through something similar you might know what I mean, although the experience cannot be encapsulated for all into one description. I am not supposing that everybody can relate or that I speak for everybody who has dealt with situations like this.
I have spent so much time talking to other people who have had similar experiences. From that I can say that I see how common this feeling is. It is not always self-blame per say. A lot agree that we knew it wasn't right and that we were worth more, but we were just willing to sacrifice ourselves at the lashing post when we were that exposed and exhausted (again only speaking about the conversations I have had with others who confide in similar experiences). Active fighting only lasted so long for me because every word that came out of my mouth was used as reverse ammunition against me later. Everything I said would be used against me, so I just wouldn't say anything at all. I retreated to internal endurance of not letting myself truly give in, and focusing on maintaining an unflinching face on the outside. Just get by.

That level of recession is something I will never go back to in my life. I experienced a loss of my own voice that came stealthily in sheep's clothing.That is the place at which I finally began crumbling from the inside out. I found myself bowing to a human being in fear of his unbelievably fast temper. I was tiptoeing around topics that I KNEW I had every right to talk about, but they had been so twisted at that point that I had no desire to even try. I  began to silence even my own gut instincts and didn't reach out for help.

THAT was the major mistake that I ended up making that I want to shed light on.

It was not until I broke one day and begged for help that I heard, for the first time in many months,

"You are loved. You deserve better. These things are not okay, they are not normal. That person is unhealthy, self-deceiving, and self-serving. People like that will protect themselves at all costs...honey you are the cost." 

That was the first time that someone put words to things that I had shuddered to even think about. I had wondered at times if so-and-so's behavior qualified as xyz, but never touched that topic again because when I asserted it to that same person I paid heavily for it.When one person finally said "abuse", " manipulation", "blackmail", "psychologically ill" and I knew that I had known that... I looked myself in the mirror and wept bitterly. When silence is finally defeated with truth it comes flowing like a river that you cannot stop. As scary as that sounds, that overwhelming feeling can be one of the most freeing experiences of your life if you let it. After I told one safe person, and another safe person, and another I realized that they were all saying the same things,

"When did you start normalizing this? How does he think these things are normal or okay? You aren't wrong, stop doubting yourself. Don't you hear yourself?" 

It took a long time for me to even receive what they were saying, because I still heard him in my mind. If it weren't for that first safe person in my life and his willingness to listen without judgement or interruption I don't know that the outcome would have been the same. If I hadn't drug myself to confessing how dark things were, I would probably still be in that place. Looking back on it I know it seems simple. The basic action is simple, but it is not in the least easy.

I want people who are struggling with any of the same things to hear this, whether you like it or not (I know I didn't like hearing it the first ten times).
If you need help, find a way to reach out. I know from experience that that alone can be an exhausting and dangerous endeavor, but if there is one thing left that is worth your energy it is this. 

Very few can get out of situations like this alone. I thought I was totally that person and it kept me from getting the help I needed sooner. It is not an admittance of weakness, it does not define you,  the pain of walking away and the sickening way you miss that person will not last forever. There IS so much better. 

I am a pageant queen who could sing on stage in front of hundreds, speak as an advocate at massive events, walk on stage in a swim suit and heels, compete figure skating programs under pressure, complete U.S. Army basic training and subsequent schools graduating at high levels of my classes...
but I am also human. My worth in those areas is not dismissed by being stuck in an awful situation, it would have been if  I had let that define me and rule my life any longer though. It would have inevitably leaked into every area of my life like it already was. Neither are you defined by a situation like that. Do no be deceived by the lies that tell you that you can't change, that you aren't someone who could fall into that, or that you eventually things will just get better. Do not mistake things getting better with things being normalized and desensitized like I did. Dear love, do not give up the fight. Also, feel free to reach out to me if this sounds like you. I've got your back.


If you need immediate resources please do not hesitate to reach out to National Suicide Prevention, whether you are feeling suicidal or not it is often misunderstood that they do provide resources beyond suicidal counseling and someone to talk to. If you need someone to talk to they are there, if you need resources for that topic or anything else they provide that as well.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/

 1-800-273-8255


They do online chat, phone calls, and have website resources available as well. You can tell them everything, some things, or practically nothing and they are there to help.





Another good article to read for the day-to-day after removing yourself from awful situations:

https://thoughtcatalog.com/shahida-arabi/2017/11/5-powerful-ways-to-rise-again-after-emotional-abuse/