Inktober/Blogtober crossover: Day 15

Today's Inktober prompt word is "weak."  I want to issue a little trigger warning for this blog, because it may get deep and will have reference to abuse and to suicide.

Weakness is something I've accused myself of far too many times.  In several of those instances, the word has been put in my head by someone else.

The last time I ever spoke to my abusive ex, he looked me in the eye and told me that he knew what he'd done to me, but felt no remorse in the slightest, because I was weak and pathetic enough to allow it.

I believed it.  Of course he was right, wasn't he?  I hadn't stood up for myself.  I had accepted his manipulation and his lies about how he couldn't help his behaviour.  I had taken his abuse with barely a word in protest.  "Weak" was the only word to describe me.

I thought back to being a child of twelve, pitifully trying to attach my school tie to the shower rail in our bathroom, in the hope of taking my own life, just to escape the daily bullying I was enduring.  Wasn't that weakness?  Had I always been weak?

It took a lot of counselling and many months of putting myself back together again, before I hit upon a realisation that stunned me:  Weak was the very last thing I was.

Every day, that young girl on the school bus turned her face to the window and stared out into the world, blocking out the words either whispered icily into her ears, or yelled over the rumble of the engine.  She dreamt of the day when it would all be over.  Not a dream of death, anymore, but a dream of escaping school and moving on with her life, free from the insults and the spitting and the food thrown at her for no reason beyond her apparently unacceptable lack of beauty.  That young girl was stronger than she ever knew.

When I was 17 and in sixth form, I started volunteering for a listening service, counselling young students, many of whom had experienced terrible bullying.  I wanted to use what I'd been through to help others.  That teenage girl was stronger than I ever gave her credit for.

And then, many years later, I met my abuser.  He told me he was "broken" and couldn't help his behaviour.  And yes, I believed him.  Yes, I "let" him behave badly.  Because, for reasons I wish I could explain now, I loved him.  I loved him fiercely and I was prepared to offer support and try to help him fix himself, even if it meant I'd experience pain, in the process.  I wasn't weak.  I was trying to be strong enough for both of us.

Now, I know myself far better than I did, back then.  I am someone who has put herself back together more than once, becoming stronger in the process.  I've spent years shoring up my defences, accepting myself for who and what I am and trying to always use my negative experiences to help others, be it through talking to those being bullied and offering advice, or through the abuse awareness-raising I do online. 

The strongest thing of all, however, is that I haven't lost the essence of me.  I still openly laugh and cry without shame (I will never accept that tears are a weakness - emotionally vulnerability is a strength).  I still love fiercely when I care for someone.  I still wear my heart on my sleeve.  I still believe in the goodness of people.

None of that is a weakness.  To be content in yourself and to acknowledge who you are takes enormous strength.  To love others when you've been badly hurt takes resilience. 

I am not weak.  And if you've experienced pain and you're still here to tell the tale, neither are you.

Be proud.