This week was difficult. I was yet again faced with a choice, either to accept abuse or not.
You see, it would have been easier if it was a stranger, but it’s someone I love very much.
As many of you know, I am 46 years of age. I don’t act like it, I don’t look like it, but I am.
Those 46 years manifests itself through life experience. At 26, I wouldn’t have made the decision I made this week. I would have just accepted it and continue to tolerate it.
I accepted toxic relationships and abuse. I didn’t know any better, or maybe I did, but I just didn’t know how to go about setting boundaries. I didn’t find my voice.
I accepted things, I made excuses and justifications for the abuse and utter disrespect, for years.
When you are subject to abuse, it starts to look normal to you. You start to think this is how life is and you settle.
However, there is a fighter in me.
Despite the put downs, disrespect, name calling, being hit, cursed and spit at, abused in every sense of the word… deep down, I knew it was wrong. I knew I didn’t deserve it. I just knew.
When I was a child, a teenager and even in my twenties, I didn’t have a voice. I was on coping mode. I was trying to make sense out of things that made no sense. I was trying to survive.
I was surviving for years, but not living. I was just trying to get from one day to the next. In a dark, dismal and lonely world. I didn’t feel loved or love.
Thanks to God, I came a long way from those days, but this week I was brutally reminded of it. I was faced again with a choice, do I just go along and accept it? Or do I say no?
As much as it hurt me, I said no. I cut ties with this person I love. I am not angry. I am not harboring resentment or unforgiveness. I simply said no. I can love this person from afar and pray for them.
I no longer have to accept or be subject to anyone’s abuse; whether it be family, friends, associates or strangers.
I found my voice.
Have you found yours?