Several years ago, I was able to leave "the beast". I was getting some help at the time - help that was suddenly taken away leaving me stuck with two choices: become homeless with a toddler with nowhere to go or take him back.
I took him back.
How often does this happen?
More than most people want to admit much less talk about.
Tonight I was clearing out some old emails and came across one - a response to a personal request I had sent to a marriage couple. Since I have no problems at this point in my journey calling out people paid to help but turn out to be people just looking to make money, I will share their names: Katie and Gay Hendricks. I wrote a letter at the time telling them about "his" rage and what I could do about it. I shared my struggle to reach him, his toxic words and behaviors, and how alone I felt. Instead of talking to me like I was a real person with a unique situation, I received an impersonal response (with my name) filled with videos of theirs I could do in order to achieve Bliss in my relationship. Nothing personal. Not what I needed. At. All.
How often does this happen to those of us in these nightmare relationships?
How often are we told to just leave?
How often are we told to go to a shelter (for a few weeks and then what?)?
How often are we told to get a restraining order (assuming we live in a state that recognizes mental/emotional abuse - which I do not)?
How often are we just flat. out. dismissed?
When I share my situation - especially these days - I am up front and honest. I have no issue saying this is what I need.
And yet something seems to happen when one human says that phrase: "This is what I need". It brings out some hurtful, dismissive behaviors in the other humans who dismiss those words and instead say "no, THIS is what you need to do".
Sometimes it feels like others I consider friends and family - at least I once did - and even strangers - don't want to see that abused woman escape and be free, liberated, healthy and happy.
Sometimes it feels like this reality wants that suffering to continue - perhaps because it makes another feel that "whew - I'm just glad that's not ME" - making their problems not feel so heavy.
However, I also feel it's more than that. I think it comes down to a refusal to see the basic dynamic of leaving a relationship that keep many women trapped: MONEY.
Money is power here.
Money is freedom.
It allows you to move, get your own place, your own car, to travel, do, hire the best people to help - all those things a woman needs in order to get out of these toxic, life draining situations.
It angers me at a very deep level to know women stay because they lack the money.
In my situation, I have an income, but it isn't enough. If housing were affordable - food too - I could do it. But since we have been quickly becoming like Venezuela, a woman, especially a mother with a child or children, are being forced to stay in situations they do not want to be in because of the money and affordability factor.
Do I see people like the couple I mentioned above talk about this?
Nope.
Do I see other big names in the narcissism movement talk about this (while they bring in the big bucks talking about it)?
Nope.
My issue isn't with people making money helping others heal. I'm all for that. We are in a reality that requires us to make money to survive.
My issue is when they and much of the world don't talk about the economic factor and why women/mothers are often stuck because of it.
Healing means we see. We see it all. And we look at it and examine it and ask what we can do to solve the problem - to shift it.
And at the end of the day, ask what we can do to help those in these "unspoken about" situations.
This is why I am doing this site - not just to share and educate but to make the money I need to get out of the very topic in which this site is focused on. So then I can go from victim to victor.
Please help by supporting this work. Share it. Become a subscriber. Buy me a coffee. In doing so you help make sure one less woman - one less mom - has to stay where she doesn't belong.
That is all for now.
M.E.