- Apr 19, 2018
I don’t remember the first time my mom hit me. I simply don’t remember a time when random acts of violence were absent. One of my earliest memories is of being thrown on the driveway and my head bouncing hard against the ground, a taste that I would later learn was blood but that I just thought of as ‘pain’ filled my mouth. I was 4 years old.
As I got older I began to be able to predict what behaviors were more likely to provoke a violent response, although I was never able to know 100% of the time what drove these outbursts. Other adults would remark upon my maturity, compliment my mother on how quiet and well-behaved I was – they never understood the motivation for my quiet and composed demeanor. By the time I had reached the lofty age of 8 I had become adept at reading my mother’s moods and adjusting my behavior to try to please her. When I was awakened at 2am with a flashlight in my face, my mother screaming at me at the top of her voice, being made to scrub the bathtub or clean the kitchen floor – I always blamed myself and tried to figure out what I had done wrong. As an adult I would learn terms like bi-polar disorder and manic depressive disorder but 8 year old me was left feeling insecure and uncertain as to what I could do differently to avoid abuse.
When I was in middle school and high school I began to realize that my home life was very different from those my classmates experienced. My friends always complained about their moms, I superficially agreed and supported them but always envied them. If the worst I could expect from my mom was to be lectured for talking on the phone too long? Sign me up. I navigated a nightmare landscape where nothing I said or did was right, the way I folded laundry one day was fine, the next day it was a disaster. I have lost track of the concussions I had been treated for, the broken collar bone, the torn iris, the spiral wrist fractures, multiple finger fractures and my defining facial characteristic, my scarred left eyebrow from when I didn’t exit the car quickly enough and got my head slammed in the door as a ‘warning.’ These physical scars are so much a part of me that I don’t often think about them. The mental scars run a lot deeper.
I have asked myself a million times, how could I marry a narcissist and not see what I was signing up for? How could I tie myself further to him by having 3 children with him? The answer is that I was conditioned from birth to believe that I deserved whatever terrible treatment I received from those closest to me. The worst gift my mother gave me was the expectation that love always came accompanied by pain, and that pain was always my fault.
The main thing I would like to say to my younger self, and to anyone else dealing with similar life experiences is that it isn’t your fault and you deserve better. No child is born deserving abuse, and no relationship should mean pain. Be the architect of your future and draw up new plans, build on your past as a foundation but don’t be afraid to break free and design your own future.
Please share your story with us at mystory@50fabulousandfinallyfree.com
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- Apr 17, 2018
Loving Yourself
Aaptiv
One thing that everyone seems to want to do these days is work out. Whether it’s to lose weight, gain tone or just to stay fit – it’s a trend we all participate in. The problem with modern life is we are all so busy with work, kids, spouses and other activities that working out becomes an afterthought. Aaptiv fixes this part of the workout dilemma. With this incredible app, you have access to whatever kind of workout you’d like. Whether it’s cardio, weight loss or just a quick dose of yoga, they’re all in the palm of your hand. The classes are structured by difficulty and time. My personal go to is yoga, I enjoy the tranquility and the stretching really helps my back. I usually go with the Vinyasa Flow and can do a class as short as 12 minutes or as long as 49 minutes. There’s literally no excuse to not workout! There are even options to train for a 5k or half marathon. The app is free through the app store and comes with a free trial, after that it’s $5.99 a month – which is a lot cheaper than any gym membership.
- Apr 12, 2018
I’m done. I’m done using “I’m busy” as an excuse for not spending time with people who are important to me. We’ve all heard the stories about why we should cherish the people we are close to because ‘they may be gone tomorrow’. The moment you hear about someone else who lost someone they care about and they share their regret with you, you may think “I should call so and so” but do you? Or do, you get busy and forget? Americans pride themselves on being “busy.” We use it as way of bragging how important we are but really it prevents us from doing what we want to do. Over the course of a few days, I learned one friend had passed away and another was in hospice and she passed a few days later. When the shock was over, I realized that I hadn’t seen my friend in months and now it was too late. I’m wondering who else I haven’t made time for in the past year? Who else will I regret I didn’t see if I got a call tomorrow that they were gone? And for what? I have time to skim through social media at night but not to call a friend? I need to eat, why not invite someone I want to spend time with? At the end of my life, will I be proud of how clean my house is or that I told someone how important they are to me and how they have impacted my life? I didn’t get the chance to tell my friend how she is the voice of my conscience. When I have an ethical dilemma, I ask myself “what would Lindsey tell me?” She taught me so much about the world of politics and kept me out of trouble more times than I care to admit. It meant so much to me that she would text me every year when I was at opening day of baseball season or when the Dodgers played one of her favorite baseball teams. I hope she knew how I felt. I don’t want to only keep up with my dearest friends by reading their posts on Facebook. I want to know how they are doing, not just what their social media profile says. I want to hear the excitement in my friend’s voice when he shares the good things happening in his or her life or be there for my friend when she needs a shoulder to cry on or a hug. I want my friendships to be about quality, not quantity. It’s about making time for what’s important, the people I care about.
Please share your story with us at mystory@50fabulousandfinallyfree.com
#Friends #ConfidinginFriends #Priorities #Friendships #MakingTimeForFriends #Grateful #LossOfAFriend #Regrets #Communication #KeepingInTouch #WomensStruggles #Gettogethers #Pinterest #Facebook #Instagram #PsycologicalAbuse #GrowingUpAbused #VerbalAbuse #BeingAbused #LivingWithAnAbuser #EmotionalAbuse #AbusiveRelationship #PhysicalAbuse #Abuse #ProtectingYourFamilyFromANarcissist #MarriedToANarcissist #BeingMarriedToANarcissist #DivorcingANarcissist #Narcissist #Narcissistic #Sociopath #MarriedToASociopath #BeingMarriedToASociopath #DivorcingASociopath #Women #Deceipt #Deception #Denial #CheatingHusband #UnfaithfulSpouse #50Divorced
