13 MANTRAMAGAZINE.COM
You realize you need something bigger than yourself to
leave. You may need real help with getting your head
straight again. You may need an intervention and intensive
therapy. Get everything you can with every resource you
have. You may feel overwhelming shame like I did. Your
insides may feel like they’re getting ripped apart. You’re
just putting yourself back together, healing into wholeness,
learning true self-respect, and reclaiming your worth. It’s a
painful process, requiring us to face our past trauma, feel
things we’ve hidden, pull old baggage out so it can finally
be dealt with, so we can really receive love and be in a
healthy partnership and break these patterns of tolerating
emotionally/physically destructive people. I promise you
are so worth it and you’re going to make it.Get Get WWhatehatevver er
Help You Help You NNeed.eed.
1414
Bullies Get Bigger Bullies Get Bigger
with Your Silence.with Your Silence.
They Don’t Like They Don’t LikeBeing Told No.Being Told No.
1313
1212
Find a place that feels safe, and when you’re ready, speak
up. I just hope it doesn’t take you a decade, like my story. I
moved on 10 years ago, but this abuser keeps this energetic
bond going through the court system. I’m the first woman
to leave him, to tell him no, and it appears that I need to
keep suffering for it. I’ve started two more national print
magazines, met my husband, traveled to 25 more countries
since I dated him. This was another lifetime ago, but he
makes sure it follows me. The purpose is control, and to
inflict as much damage as possible. Your job is to live with
as much joy, love, and purpose as you can, celebrating your
gloriously messy imperfect self. Whatever you do, you can’t
let their insanity get inside your head. Never view yourself
from the abuser’s point of view.You are
worth it
and you’re
going to
make it.
I’ve spent a large part of my life trying to help women
empower themselves, but after this trauma, I shrank. I
withdrew. I moved overseas and let my gorgeous home
in Colorado go, just to get away. I removed myself for the
last nine years, hoping to put this behind me. He keeps it
going. A multi-millionaire, with numerous attorneys, is
afraid of me telling my story, and legally keeps me from
doing just that. My sinking and shrinking didn’t make it
better; it emboldened him to become more confident in
the tale he was spinning, to make me leave rooms I was
in, afraid enough to shrink from posting on social media.
Every conference I was speaking at had a mystery man
call. So I stopped. I had medical records, police documents,
and a major domestic violence agency testify regarding
my therapy for more than a year, but he had resources.
How much evidence does it take to equal the one rich
man with resources in the court system? Never enough it
seems. Your silence will not protect you. It won’t help the
next person either.I know you just want it all to be over, but sometimes you
have to fight, and release the shame long enough to tell
people what’s happening, to get the help you need to
protect yourself. Our last time in court (keep in mind this
was a short-term boyfriend, not a spouse), I shrank, telling
the court how I moved overseas, quit all my committees
and organizations that might have overlapped with him,
and never re-entered the state we both lived in for almost a
decade, a decade! It didn’t show my commitment to peace,
it showed weakness to them, that I would just keep taking
it. Rich men can use the court system to gag you from ever
telling your story.This year is nearing 10 full years of his protective order,
with no contact from me. I’m not going quietly this time.
Every time I fly into the US I’m stopped for up to 90 minutes
after a 12+ hour flight, and held in a room, then questioned
whether I’ve had any contact with this person, while
my family sits and waits for an hour. It took a decade to
realize that I can’t be afraid of an abuser and the system
that protects him. Listen, I get it. You’re traumatized, feel
relentless shame, and you don’t want anyone to know.
That’s been a losing battle for me. While you’re pulling
yourself together, they’ve already created a narrative and
spread it to anyone that’ll listen. The right people will
believe you, protect you, and they won’t judge you. Tell your
story, get the media in the courtroom, get outside eyes that
may force a level of accountability and sanity. Sometimes
it’s easy to fall back into that scared child mode, when it’s
all too much, but you can handle this.I’d rather you regret any consequences from telling the
truth, than the shame that comes with not speaking up.continued from previous page
13 MANTRAMAGAZINE.COM