December 22, 2020 1:07pm
I write this on the sofa bed I slept on for nearly 3 years. It is back to a sofa. I never use it as a sofa. It was step up from the air mattress I slept on before that when I was teaching Chinese kids English and making the step by step motion to get out.
It is Tuesday and on Friday the 18th of December, I moved my kids and myself out of the home we had been sharing with their father and our abuser.
If you have been following this blog then you know that Synclair is not my real name, but the pen name from which I share this part of my history.
Abuse is a funny thing. It hits hard. It dissipates. It is in ebbs and flows.
Let the fresh start begin.
The last several days, I have received an outpouring of love and support.
Nearly every time I open my front door, there is a new box. A package from this secret band of people, sending love and support and empowerment as I journey on this next step with my children. It feels as if this outpouring is coming back to me and also reminding me who I am – who I was…
For years now, the focus for many of my friendships has been on getting me out of this. My friends devote a lot of energy and time listening to me, but in acknowledging that, I also acknowledge that I have always enjoyed building a community and learning people, listening to them, hanging out with them and so this exchange is equitable.
But as I dig, the remnants of the abuse are there… a marriage that left me feeling as if I did not deserve these things, as if I was not worthy, as if I was a bad mother and even shifting the way my children interact with me, which was and has been the hardest thing to take in and what I will likely deal with and what they will likely deal with for the rest of our lives.
This is why I got out.
For them. For my future. For the giving I have to do and enjoy.
But I must receive I must sit back and receive and continue to receive because that is ok. Because my community is taking care of me, the way I took care of them, the way I have always wanted to be taken care of.
I can turn my porch light on. He had removed the bulb in both that and the drive way. Because of the electric bill and I’m sure there was a narrative about my being ungrateful. I hated coming back in the dark, but just learned to deal with it, and because we shared a porch with our neighbor, sometimes they turned on theirs, so that wasn’t so bad.
January 3, 2021 2:50pm
I’ve been on a healing journey the last several weeks.
Just before the moving day, about a week before, my dear sister-friend, one of the woman in my “Safety Thread” that began 3 years ago, encouraged me to create a list. Her big concern was that I was going to stress myself and create more tension the day of the move. By a week out, I was unsure about my ability to get everything out of the house… the moment to “pack a bag and go” was upon us, as much as I had tried to put that out of my mind.
After much encouragement, I started the list using my pen name, Synclair Stephens. She encouraged me to pamper myself – part of my healing process… I was in go mode and eventually sat down and added some things quickly. I’ve continued to add over time.
She told some people about me who wanted to support and shared with our Safety Thread and I shared with a small group. It spread to whom it needed to spread and people are still surprising me, which feels like the whole point.
People were also interested in sending cash, so I created a PayPal. It was live, but has undergone some challenges.
In the meantime, I re-vamped the Patreon I also created in 2017. Anyone wanting to send through PayPal can support by joining Patreon and deleting your pledge after a month. You can find that here., or send me message on the Contact Page
I admit, the awkwardness at posting all of this as if asking for a handout. That is the shame speaking of being in the abusive relationship – the shame that I shouldn’t have nice things and that I’m bothering people.
In reality, as my friend who encouraged the list has said many times, people want to help – they opt-in and so many others have been in this situation before. It’s ok.
It’s. o.k.
Happy Sunday
~Synclair
