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Many times victims are not believed when they confide
that they are abused.
Leaving can be more dangerous. Women are 75% more likely
to be killed, and or stalked when they act to end the violence,
by leaving their abuser.
Many people don't know that help is available.
So many people ask
"Why", so I feel the need to add this as an important
topic to this issue. I can't speak for all abused women, but only
for myself. I have learned through counseling, and hearing many
other abuse stories, that there are common reasons as to why this
happens to women. When my abuse began, I was 17 years old, with
a new born baby. Those days were very stressful, trying to do
all the right things for my child was not always easy, being a
child myself. Up to that point in my life I had never asked myself
what I wanted out of life. What kind of husband I wanted, what
kind of parents we'd be. I never questioned my values, or goals
for my future, let alone the future of my child. So to wrap it
all up into one, I was extremely naive, self confidence (comes
with the age), and I was never taught to respect myself, and to
demand respect from others. I just didn't know how. I rarely liked
myself as a teen, so my self confidence was never very high. Like
most kids that age, I lived from day to day, not really ever looking
at what might be ahead.
Now, I know
not all women begin being abused as teens, by their teen husbands,
but immaturity has a lot to do with it I think. And you don't
have to be 17 to be immature. For most teens all of these things
are a normal part of growing up, and searching for yourself. Most
girls figure out who they are, and what they are all about by
the time they get out of High school, or begin college. The natural
progression for becoming a woman (mentally). As a 17 year old
mother, I robbed myself of that opportunity, and later found it
wasn't easy learning those things at the age I did. I think I
was 23 before I had some answers for myself. Up until that point
I had lived for everyone else. I was too busy being a mother,
a wife, a (later) girlfriend, to ever be concerned with who I
WANTED to be.
So during a five year
period, all of this stress as to who I was and why I was here,
only intensified. Not knowing the answers and being refused the
space and privacy to discover who I was, only made it all worse.
I was married to a very possessive, controlling, and manipulative
so called man. He took advantage of my being naive, and lack of
life experience (he was 4 years older). When the abuse began I
felt powerless to stop it, I cowered in the corner until it was
over. As it got worse, I began to grow a little courage, and fight
back, but that only made it worse, because then I was threatening
his authority, and power over me. I had none, not even over myself.
This is why I call it brainwashing. Over the years I thought that
maybe I had just been picking the wrong men, rotten one after
rotten one. I went from bad to worse, when I left him. Many years
later, I realized It WAS ME! I was really messed up! I was in
my middle 20's, had gone through hell and back. I had NO self
respect, self esteem, future, or life. I had let the men in my
life always control all of that. And did they!
My conclusion... years later after much growing
up, soul searching, counseling, and learning to love myself. I
now know, that how we allow people to treat us, is a direct reflection
of how we feel about ourselves.