You get what you deserve?

How often was I told everything was my fault?  I heard it all the time.  In fact, I had heard it so much that I believed it.  I truly believed I was a horrible person who deserved to be punished.  He certainly made that clear.  I was also told over and over that I was really stupid.  I think a lot of folks think victims of domestic violence are stupid. 

"If she was smart, she wouldn't be with him in the first place." 

"If she was smart, she would have left the first time he hit her." 

And he would say, "If you were smart, you wouldn't have pissed me off." 

"If you wouldn't have talked on the phone to your sister for so long, I wouldn't have yelled at you." 

"If you weren't such a slow driver, I wouldn't have lost my cool." 

"If you would have done what I said when I said it, we wouldn't have a problem, now would we?"

Even when I asked his dad for help, he told me I had to sleep in the bed I had made.

A lot of people think that abuse is a choice.  It's not.  No one chooses to be abused. 

Sure, I take respsonsibility for myself.  I have made a lot of mistakes.  I own them.  I have spent 13 years trying to forgive myself of my mistakes.  But I NEVER deserved to be abused.  And neither do you.

Battered women are some of the smartest people I know.  We know how to survive.  We know how to manage and run a household while everything around us is falling apart.  We know how to raise our children to be successful and loving human beings despite our dysfunctional home life.  Battered women are fiercly protective of their children and we have beautiful mothering skills. 

We stay and go back for a lot of reasons but stupidity is not one of them.  The hell we live through is not what God intended for us and we didn't ask for it, we didn't want it, and we didn't deserve it.

You aren't stupid.  You are not a bad person.  You don't deserve to be abused.  It is not your fault.  There is hope.  There is a way out.

The National Domestic Violence Hot Line

1 800 799 SAFE (7233)

Lines are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week

*Please support your local domestic violence center*