Who even am I!

I started this blog back in 2014 and since then my life has changed dramatically. I had just started back at uni, had 1 daughter and a man who I was in love with in prison. Now I’m in my early 30’s, work in commercial law, studying for a masters in Business law and have two beautiful children.

I am recovering from a very abusive relationship with the very same man who I visited frequently in jail. The man who wrote to me weekly, spoke to me whenever he got the chance and promised me that he would spend the rest of his life making it up to me. Little did I know that the heartbreak of prison was only the beginning of the heartache and pain I was to be subject to and I would hear that same fake empty promises over and over again until I finally meant ‘I mean it this time.’

I have up days and I have down days but I am real. I want to use my negative experience and turn it into a positive. I am adamant I will help and support others. I am adamant that the best is yet to come!

1 in 4 women suffer from domestic abuse in their lifetime. That’s scary. What I find even scarier is how much goes unrecorded. How many women (and men) actually don’t even see themselves as a victim, they know something isn’t right but really do not see it as abuse? It took me ages to see it for what it was, I believed I was to blame. I hated myself for losing the man who always loved me so much to someone I did not recognise. I was willing to give chance after chance purely because I felt like I was the reason he behaved the way he did.

Eventually I educated myself about abuse and I could relate to everything I read about. Narcissism, gaslighting, projection, love bombing and manipulation it felt like such a huge relief.

I wasn’t going mad, I wasn’t crazy, there actually was a word for all these things I had been experiencing. I had health professionals tell me all the time I was a victim and I got my back up all the time. ‘Control’ he doesn’t control me I thought. I can still go out I can still be me. But the truth is, they control in far more manipulative ways than just by saying ‘You can’t leave.’

I wrote A letter to my ex .. which sums up everything he did and I really wasn’t being me.

Even after realising it still took 10 months to fully get away. I knew it was abuse, yet I felt he could change. I believed I made him abusive, because that’s what he told me. I believe I made him do all the things he did, because I drove him too it. As the cycles of abuse got more frequent and still blamed me for everything. I needed out.

In June 2017 I knew he wasn’t going to ever change and quite frankly I didn’t want him too. I could never forgive him for everything he had already put me through. I however had NO idea how I was going to get out. I would tell him constantly I didn’t want to be with him but he would act like the conversation had not happened, abuse me as he believed I just wanted to sleep around or he would make it very clear I could never meet anyone else. He would tell me he was coming back for me and he wouldn’t ever let me go. I believed him. I was trapped.

My self esteem was so low I believed he was my only option, I believed no man would want me with 2 kids by 2 different dads and I believed he would make it mere on impossible to move on.

In the meantime I was being lied too, cheated on, spoken to like I was beneath him, let down, verbally abused, intimidated, tied up in knots and physically hit when things were not going his way.

This was not a life for me or a life for my children.

I have good days, I have really bad days, but everything I write is real and honest. If anything I downplayed how bad it really was. If you can relate I would love to hear from you… it is tough dealing with this on your own both during the abuse and the aftermath.

I got out and I REALLY mean it this time.

Kerry

xxx