In the Beginning:
Often, the mental and physical abuse starts subtly, gradually. You are confused, wondering what is happening to you.
You may even have the social and financial backup you need to start over. So the conundrum trails back to one puzzling question; Why do you stay?
Perhaps it is the fear of being alone. Perhaps it is societal expectations that influence your decision; the internal conflict with your confidence and self -esteem. You keep doubting yourself and wondering whether you will be emotionally or financially stable.”
Society is heavily structured on patriarchal systems and beliefs that sustain the abuse of women. Often, a woman’s success and value is equated to how well she leads her domestic life in the name of tradition. Deviation from this means lifelong stigmatization and exclusion from family and society. This renders a woman’s place in society, a lonely place, an upward struggle, a continuous warring between what feels right and what is deemed right. A woman’s life has never been easy.
Society overlooks the fact that women are autonomous individuals. It inhibits women’s potential with limiting beliefs and customs. The lack of social support systems is integral in many cultures. It’s a systemic oppression that has existed for centuries. It is tragic that victims of domestic abuse tend to struggle to tightly grasp on to man-grown, self-inhibiting boundaries.
Abuse is about control and an abuser will coerce or manipulate victims into subservience. (read-gaslighting). The result is a loss of confidence. You second- guess yourself and begin to think that the abuse is normal and that you deserve it.
Then again, a victim may really want to leave, but it seems as though, there is nowhere and nothing to go back to. Your abuser has somehow managed to isolate you. You have no social backup whatsoever. Perhaps he controls your finances too. Perhaps the parent who would welcome you with open arms is gone. The property has been shared out among your brothers because as a woman, you were always expected to leave. Nothing was kept for you. Your home does not feel like home. There is no fire burning, no warm meal awaiting you, no laughter echoing in the hallways. Perhaps strangers call your home their home now, so it seems, the distance you have travelled to get to the spot where you stand, is insurmountable. You cannot imagine going back. Perhaps it is the stigma; being labelled ‘the scarlet divorcee’. Perhaps it is your children; the thought of them asleep on the pavement, hungry and cold, is unbearable. Perhaps you have invested your best years in a mistake. So you sacrifice and endure the abuse, the torture.
“..even sunshine burns,
if you get too much of it”
Perhaps he has managed to convince himself and you, that the abuse is because he loves you too much and is afraid to lose you. You delude yourself with thoughts of the times he puts on his best Prince charming act. He will change, you hope. He loves you too much. Remember, even sunshine burns, if you get too much.
Your scars are buried deep, where no one can see. It is a lonely fight. It is a fight that will kill you.
This is the plausible reality of the life of every woman. This is the reason every girl must be empowered, so that there is always somewhere you can go.
Know this, please; that you are worth so much more and the strength that makes it possible to endure unimaginable abuse, is the only thing that you need to start right from ground zero. You can do it. You will make it. Leave with nothing but that self-will. Leave as though you never were. Leave as long as there is breath in you. Leave and heal yourself and start over. Reach deep down where that strength endures and find the will to start over. Start one more time. Start a hundred more times. Love yourself a little. You owe it to yourself.
Survivor 
Loved this article! Great job!
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