By CDV
Anger and domestic violence are an unfortunate pairing, but all-too common. You don’t have to live with the past. You don’t have to live in anger. You don’t have to live with the damage of domestic violence. You can know, accept, change and grow. I will show you how.
If you’ve read my book Invincible: The 10 Lies You Learn Growing Up With Domestic Violence, And The Truths To Set You Free, then you are aware that growing up with domestic violence is not a rare occurrence. However, you’ve also seen that you can move forward from a damaged childhood.
Domestic violence affects 1 billion people worldwide and UNICEF calls it one of the most pervasive human rights violations in the world today.
However even this staggering statistic can’t speak to the horrors you may have faced if you too grew up with domestic violence. Worse yet, in order to survive it, you learned defense mechanisms to minimize its emotional and cognitive impact. Experiences that are, by definition, traumatic might have simply felt like normal life to you.
The road to healing and your ability to carve out a new path and a new future for yourself require that you consider how growing up with domestic violence may still be affecting you today. Knowledge is power.
While it can be painful to consider, you actually begin to take back control of your life the moment you realize that something tragic happened to you as a child, and that it may still be affecting you today.
Although anger and domestic violence are the unfortunate cause-and-effect for so many adults, you don’t have to remain angry, and you can become a force for change.
I encourage you to share, in the comments below, what you currently believe about yourself and your childhood growing up with domestic violence. If you acknowledge this, you will become empowered.
Grew up experiencing abuse at home. Thought it normal for many years and today unfortunately I do not trust that it is not in most homes and that the opposite sex cannot be trusted. A very sad situation for anyone.
I survived 18 years of extreme D.V. It was my job to ‘save’ my mother from whatever mess she got herself into. I was compassionate at first, but after I evicted my father at the age of 15, my mother took us to live with her boyfriend the same night. When the violence began again in the absence of my father I realized she had something to do with its generation. Then she turned all her negativity on me. She saw me as a rival, & blamed me for having my father’s genes, which she expressed as being “sneaky” like him, ect. I did not see my father for years because I knew my mother wouldn’t cope with it. She made it her job to tell all the family how to feel. For this outcome she invented increasingly bizzare & unlikely stories about those she saw as villains or friends. She continues to do so today, although I opted out a long time ago. She has an adopted son & two half-brothers to my step-father. When I turned 18 she accused me of wanting to sleep with this man who I dislike & tolerate for her sake. It made me feel nausea, not just because she could imagine such a thing, but also because she knew me so little. I have often wondered where that thought came from, but now believe that the truth was the reverse. He may have had some attraction to me. Regardless, I am glad he never acted on it although I have suffered at his hands a great deal. Now my mother is dying, & it is impossible to get acknowledgement of what I experienced. There will be no reconciliation. I have never had parents who gave a damn about me. They used me as a sink for their fears & hatred.
I believe that I deserve more than I’ve believed I deserve. I have been floundering, uncertain, lacking self-confidence and feeling utterly alone for so many years. My childhood was a horror story buried deep inside and far behind the curtains and doors of our house. No one knew, no one could ever know. I am ashamed of it.