Blog on Abuse: The Lighter Side

There is this person in my life, whom I love dearly. He is someone who was abused. Physically, mentally, and verbally. Luckily, the person who abused  him was not smart enough to get his mind, deep down. I thank god for that part. But maybe I'm completely wrong about this...

I feel that I've been through some abuse in my life. Maybe for about, if I don't count them as years, and instead count only each day, and scrunch them into consecutive days, I would say, maybe -- feels like tallying -- but it's about 200 days. That's not even a year straight of abuse. So, why am I complaining so much? Maybe I shouldn't, but maybe I should.

Some part of me gets really angry about hearing from the outside that someone I know, closely, was hurt and went through child abuse and bullying for many, many years. From childhood to high school. That's like, 10 years of straight abuse, almost every day of your childhood. I can't even fathom that much pain in my life. I cry after falling in figure skating, but who wouldn't? I cry from burn out from skating too much, and I cry from mourning death, but I have never experienced enough pain from abuse to really cry. I feel like I should cry, or need to cry. Some people cry. And cry hard, and cry long, and cry for alleviation.

Anyway, so why am I blogging about this? I'm talking, forming dialogues with friends, and developing my thoughts on forms of abuse b/c it's important. I think the triggering moment was when my friend's story of sexual abuse caused a ripple in a literary community, which then liberated other voices and freed people from past trauma and pain.

I did delve into my own, small story. But, I think a lot of my abuse was not physical. And, instead, perhaps symptomatic of mental weakness. I remember thinking I was ugly, unproportional, unattractive, was never smart enough, never got the right grade I wanted, and never got the attention from the right boy, for some reason or another, I just wasn't good enough.

Then, I had someone say, "You do so well in your life; look at everything you've accomplished." I felt so good, almost healing, to have someone say this to me. I didn't have any super close friends at the time. No one who really knew me very well, outside of my first boyfriend. I was a loner, and often sought quiet spaces as a sanctuary from a lot of anxiety I was feeling, and social awkwardness, and other feelings of frustration, discomfort, and disappointment.