FOOD FOR THOUGHT FOR VICTIMS/SURVIVORS

• Love should never be feared. Love is kind, gentle, supportive, and does not demand its own way. Love is respect for another person’s opinions and feelings. Love keeps growing as partners mature together. To stay the same, is not to grow. A good relationship is 100-100.
   

• Many times she will not leave because she does not see a way out. (There are victim advocates everywhere to help her.) Or, she may think she does not have any place to go. Not so, today. There are many shelters available in so many different areas.
   

• If you have never been a victim of domestic violence or abuse, please do not be to judgmental. If you have not walked in her shoes filled with stones of hate, despair, anger, guilt, resentment, low self-esteem, low self-worth, anguish, and heartache. Her need to be loved by those she cares for, especially her family, if she is allowed to see them, (many times abusers isolate their victims from friends and families), is so great it is overwhelming. She needs patience, understanding, a shoulder to cry on, (sometimes over and over), a sounding board, without judgment, and especially to be safe.
   

• The greatest gift a mother can give her children who grew up, or are growing up wit abuse and violence is to set an example of seizing control of her life now, and thus help her children recognize the realities of abuse. Her choosing another path lights the way for them.
   

• As in a death of a loved one, when there is a death of a marriage or a relationship, there must be time to grieve. Crying is a good thing; a healing thing. Anger can also be a good thing. Both are gifts. It is how you handle the sadness and the anger that can be a good or bad thing in the steps to healing.
   

• If you were never allowed to have emotions about you, this experience can be new and foreign to you. The majority of the time you were not allowed to have your own emotions, he was or is still feeding his ego.
   

• Right now, if you are a survivor, thinking for yourself, the road can be a hard journey. Remember you are climbing a mountain, and you may take several steps backwards in your journey to reach the top, but remember this, focus on the summit. You are still climbing out of the hole of darkness and there is a brighter and better light at the top!
   

• NO ONE can ruin your life, only if you let them. NO ONE can control you, only if you let them. NO ONE can abuse you, only if you let them. Get your life back. You are worth it.
   

• Can you move forward in a positive way? It will be a constant struggle, but you can move beyond it all. This hard road of life has its good things and bad things. No one is exempt from trials, deaths, ill-health, car trouble, paying bills, struggling to survive, tribulations, and wrong choices. Be forgiving to yourself. Don’t beat yourself up to long for making errors in judgments. We all do it. Everyday, sometimes.
   

• Emotional and verbal abuse hits the soul. These are the hardest things to overcome. They stick in our minds and play over and over. It is hard to forget them. You must learn to get beyond them. Get help to sort out all the bad stuff and learn how to deal with it to help you become positive.
   

• Ask yourself this: “Where was the starting point? Why did he hit in the first place? What was the pattern before and I did not see it?” (You have to be honest with yourself, and sometimes that is hard to do.)
   

• Domestic violence is a pattern of assertive coercion behavior. Illogical behavior can make rational behavior out of irrational. If a child only knows dysfunctional, how would they know what functional is if they are not taught it or experience it?
   

• When children see abuse and violence, it can be accepted as normal. “DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND ABUSE IS NOT NORMAL!”
   

• Some women, after getting back with their abuser, do not even get the “honeymoon phase." Their abuser doesn’t even love or respect them enough to give them this. (The “honeymoon phase: is a phase when she lets him back, or she returns to him, he says he is sorry, it will never happen, and and she believes him. )
   

• When he is doing all the name-calling, and you know what they are, what are the names for him?
   

• When does the domestic violence and abuse occur with him? When he chooses too. It is effective for his needs for power and control. He also does it when other tactics are not working. The physical and sexual violence may be infrequent, because the other tactics are working.