There’s a funny thing about eggshells, no matter how hard you try to walk on them you can never not break them. For all that effort all you end up with is the same rage you were trying to avoid as well as bloody feet. Even worse, often the rage is only made worse by all the tip-toeing you were doing in your attempts to circumvent it.

It is an odd feeling, suddenly to have the weight of that lifted from you. I think I didn’t realize at the time that even though I was mostly off the eggshells for the last decade, they were still there. I still waited for the next flare, the next insanity, the next whatever that sent me into the spiral of grief and fear and pain. Suddenly there is only silence.

I think any woman that has been thru abuse, whether it’s emotional or physical or a combination of the two, or even just watching a loved one live through their own has ingrained in them certain triggers. It simply does not matter how far you’ve grown past the event, it does not matter how much time has gone by or how much distance you have from the person. I’ve spent literally years in therapy trying to make myself whole again, and while the triggers are lessened, they still exist.

I cannot deal with screaming. I just cannot, it makes me shut down, or it makes me unleash my own fury. The problem is that my anger can scare me, I’ve tried so hard to not emulate what I had been so used to that if I feel angry it terrifies me because what if that means I have become all that I despised for so very long. Shutting down and taking a step back from it is just so much easier and so much less scary.

There are still things that I have not gotten away from. Spending so long just feeling like you were not enough, no matter how much you did or how hard you tried left this permanent need in me to please, to overdo, to push myself past my actual limits. It can be a double edged sword because while it gets me places, advances me in my life also takes me to the edge of proper functioning. I will work until I collapse, which is great for those I work for but has given me ulcers and migraines and put my personal relationships at risk. All to try to gain the approval or acceptance that was always just out of my reach.

I am terrified of physical contact in anger, whether it is against myself or someone else. I am the one that picks up the phone if I see something out of line and calls the police. While I make the call I hope against hope that the simple act of a stranger doing for that woman something that most will not (I know having lived thru it on more than one occasion) will give her the courage to walk away, run away, just get out. I have seen people look away, ignore what is going on right in front of their faces, tell themselves that it’s a personal matter and none of their business.

I am begging all of you, the next time you hear that screaming smashing thing fight, the next time you see a woman grabbed, shoved, pushed, pulled away, to do something, anything to try to help. Sometimes all that woman needs is to know that someone else gives a damn, that she is not alone in thinking this is not right, or more importantly just that she is not alone. It is easy to make excuses for those that we think love us, whether they are spouses, boyfriends, fathers or brothers. It is too easy to fall into the “it’s my fault” trap, had I been more careful on those eggshells this wouldn’t have happened, I wouldn’t have upset him, I deserve this for whatever reason. Logically you KNOW it’s not right, you KNOW you deserve more but the disconnect between what is logical and what is emotional can sometimes be too much to overcome. You spend your life making excuses for things you would never excuse yourself for.

I promise at some point I will get back to cheery happy “you won’t believe what happened to me posts”, I’m just working through some crap right now

In all of this recent bullshit I have to say there’s at least one or two positive things that have come from it.

I have always had a very strong and very close circle of friends. They are the kind of people that you don’t have to talk to every day or every week to maintain your friendship. You can pick up the phone after months of not really talking and it’s like no time has really passed. They are an amazing, caring and fantastic group of people. The best thing about my friends is that no matter what, no matter where our lives have taken us or how busy we are, if one of us is in need or in crisis they are there.

In the past few weeks my love for them has really grown. There’s not a single person who I would call friend (not just that I would say I’m friendly with, but who I consider a true friend) who has not gotten in touch to make sure that in all the crazy my family and I are ok. None of them have judged, none have gone looking for extra gossip or more of the “story” of my fathers great implosion. I will never ever ever be able to repay them properly for that.

My friends are simply unbelievable.

I know that there’s some saying out there about knowing who your real friends are when you’re at your lowest and all the chips are down, and I can’t say that I am surprised by the people that have shown themselves to be the true friends right now. They are the people I have always known I could call on in a time of need and when I was at my most embarrased and my most distraught they all reached out with their care and concern.

I will never be able to thank you all enough, never be able to tell you how much it truly means to me and I hope with all my heart that you know that I will always always be there for you too. I love you guys with all my heart and if there’s one good thing to come out of all this bullshit it’s that we’ve been in better touch, it’s long overdue.

1 week ago today I was talking to my father while he was in jail. WTF. These past few weeks I’ve really been pondering the twists and turns of my life in general. All the things that I thought I’d never survive that somehow I did. Things pushed on me by others, things I had little to no control over while they were happening.

My philosophy has always been that when life takes a giant crap on you there are two paths to take. You can either let yourself become the victim, which I did for a while when I was younger, or you can stand the hell up and fight back. Life is about growing, learning and becoming stronger, otherwise all you’re doing is making excuses.

I see people, know people who all the time use the horrible things that have happened to them as a crutch. Please hear me when I say there is a time for mourning, there is a time when you just need to break down, just need to feel the sorrow and the pain and think damn right now my life blows. Eventually though that corner needs to be turned, what’s happened has happened, you can’t change it and cannot undo it no matter how hard you try. Either you bask in the suck of it and make it the reason that your life can “never” be good or you learn from it, let it make you stronger.

This current round of bullshit will also pass. It won’t be easy all the time, it will try to drag me down and while occasionally I will allow myself to bask in the suck of it, the majority of my time will be spent using it as yet another life lesson and yet another thing to make me stronger and better.