I Write for the Kids in Abusive Homes
If you have gone through any of what I’ve written about in my family stories or my poetry know that I think of you as a part of me because in some ways, you are.
I publish vulnerable topics of my life because it feels like I’m speaking to a friend or someone who I believe is going through what I’ve gone through.
I write, in general, because I see you.
Because I needed someone to tell me this—
First, I will not save you from your home battles.
The battles you are fighting are silent.
They can only be won by you and you will win.
Here is why— you have 2 things that no one can ever take away:
You’ve built strength every time you’ve been beaten the shit out of. The kind of strength that is ironclad it lives deep in you. This strength is invisible and it can feel like you don’t have it because you keep breaking down, wailing, unable to hold yourself together when he’s done. The strength that brews in you while you’re on guard because you never know when he’ll come up and strike you again. But it’s in every moment that you face it again and again, your strength compounds every time.
What’s harder to build — and what I challenge you to foster — is positivity. To find a little light in the darkest place is hard but you can create it. It’s extremely hard to imagine a soft and loving future when everything in the present is sharp and cold. Hope for something better and never, ever let that hope waver.
Dream.
Vividly dream of what you want.
Because it is coming.
Let me be the living, breathing proof that you will survive this and can thrive from it.
Every night, I cried for my mom to come back home or for God to take me away or just to die in my sleep. Every night I slept I didn’t want to wake up in the same house. I was the young girl who grew up wanting to die and now I’m the young woman who is grateful to be alive.
You will interact with a kindness and a warmth that you craved. It will feel so foreign at first but then you’ll be immersed in it and eventually you will give that to others.
I am speaking to you from a place of excitement in what’s to come for you.
So please, hang in there.
Your safety is #1. Domestic violence hotline at 1.800.799.SAFE (7233)