Choose YOU
I saw a video about an hour ago that made me so sad, so incredibly sad, and I thought I’d talk about it. Because it’s saddening just how much of the truth we like to conceal. How much of the truth we like to pretend doesn’t exist. It’s the uncomfortable truth that even though we are aware of its reality, we silence people who talk about it, and bask in the faux show of ignorance being bliss.
I saw a video of a lady lip syncing to a short song that said, “Love ain’t worth your life, I’ll tell you that. Once you leave, don’t go back.” Her body looked like someone splotched the ugliest greyish green paint on her, and suddenly, she turned her eyes and they were bloodshot, and had almost completely lost their whiteness. And immediately, I knew.
But I wish it's just the video that traumatized me. It was the comments, and since TikTok now allows for pictures in the comments, I had the most displeasure of viewing hundreds of pictures by ladies showing their beat up bodies from relationships they’d been in.
And I felt so sad. So incredibly sad, and I thought to myself that surely, we don’t still carry around the notion that it’s not that simple. That it’s not that easy to leave. And that sometimes you have to stay. For the children, because of what people would say, because it’s your fault, and you believe it’s your aggravation that caused him to react like that.
Looking at those women’s beat up bodies broke me to no ends because I know someone will tell me that I don’t understand. And maybe I don’t. I’ve never directly been in a situation like that, and fortunately, never ever had to witness that growing up. But I know people who had been in that situation, and I’ve seen how impossible it is for the abuser to change. Or even an inkling of a happy ending in any of these.
I remember visiting an aunt of mine several years back in her beautiful house with the beautiful paints and the beautiful sights. But almost on every wall were ugly splotches of brown, and I playfully told her that she may need to repaint her walls soon enough and perhaps, stop having hot cocoa fights with her husband. Then a smile so bitter, it didn’t reach her eyes, swept her face. And she said it was her blood.
And so I looked at the walls again. This time, with new eyes, and horror filled my face.
It’s never worth it. You can’t change an abuser. That’s one category of a person you can never change. So, why? Why sacrifice your life on the altar of something not worthwhile, whether in the short or long run? It’s rotten but it’s still so deeply rooted, and yet I find myself desperately clinging to the hope that as we grow, we learn to fight for ourselves. Fight for our peace. Fight for our happiness, and maybe this is too much to ask for, but that we learn to choose us. Love ourselves enough to always choose us. And see just how much better our lives can and will be.
Jhymi🖤
Images are mine.
Posted Using INLEO
It’s really sad. When it comes to staying in an abusive relationship, it’s always so hard for me to comprehend why a lot of women stay but I think it’s the fear of starting all over again. The fear of being someone that breaks her promises. Maybe she is trying the save others by just staying in that relationship (which is not needed) but she is doing it anyways. There are thousands of reasons why it might seem so hard for them to just leave. Most times we see these signs before marriage but we think we have come too far to quit, sadly.
Besides domestic violence, there are just other things that women and even some men suffer but they keep hoping for things to get better but somehow, it only gets worse. I just pray God gives us the grace not to be victims of such experiences and also not to be the cause of someone’s pain. Letting go is indeed harder than it seems but we hope that one day those in such situations will have the courage to let go.
Thank you so much for sharing this, Jhymi. 🌹.
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This was a really insightful take on the post. Thank you so much for reading, Hope.💜✨
You’re welcome, Jhymi. 🫂
There are a lot of things I will tolerate but a man beating me, that’s where I draw the line. Once you just raise your hand, I’m gone.
As you should!🫰🏾🌹
I really do wish the circumstances that led to people choosing violence would be addressed. Instead we try to address the violence itself, not the reason why people choose it.
They are trapped by circumstance, and while the violence is inexcusable, the cause for that violence is something else - and often - that something else needs to be fixed before the cycle of violence and trauma can be vanquished.
It makes me upset too.
So did your words. Especially:
This is such moving writing. It could open a book. It could be the start of a really long piece of investigative journalism looking at domestic violence in different parts of the world.
it isn't always blood and pus, sometimes it is financial, emotional, mental, and other sorts of abuse, but it is all blood curdling and unacceptable.
But always, the most unacceptable thing, is a society that gives people the notion that there is no other option but to lash out or to control the fate of another.
Couldn't have put it any better.
Love how deeply you capture the very essence of the things I've said, and even that which I couldn't say.
For how can our society have failed us when we are society.
So, we've failed ourselves.
In so many pathetic ways.
But to address the issue of what causes violence can be visited but not the expense of life that's already seeping away.
Will we be alright?
Even if we aren't - it is absolutely ok to not be alright. All we must do is survive, and even if we don't - another will take our place, or our bodies will be recycled by the processes of the universe.
The sad reality of the world is that change starts from within.
I've went through this change myself, and I know, that the ugliest form of truth is meeting that which you have ran from for most of your life.
Which is mostly yourself.
I met me.
But once I met me, and got comfortable with the small child, reaching his hand up in the air for a loving parent that did not come -- I began to understand.
The world took new shape,
I began to see people for what they really were.
And that's when the real change began!
I stopped letting people abuse me, I walked away, I stopped engaging in their petty mind games.
The easiest way to win the game of abuse is just don't play the game at all.
So easy for me to say this -- yet I understand that journey is one of fire :)
I hope we all see that we have a choice not to play the game at all.
The game of oppression and abuse.
And this is exactly what I'm trying to say.
That though our presence in that reality may not be of our own making, we all have the chance to walk away, and be free.
And I always wonder why some people still stay in that kind of marriage. The fear of what people will say have killed many. Thank God there is more awareness to this in our society lately.