Our voice often stays silent.
Often, we try not to be heard stepping on eggshells constantly. This is an emotional abusive relationship, where we love to the point of brokenness and then want to scream out loud from the anguish that is usually turned on mute.
On our worst days, there is a booming voice hovering over us that surpasses even your own meanest, small voice inside. It tells us horrible things about ourselves, that we are ugly, fat or just plain unworthy. This voice is supposed to represent 'love', when we are too broken to know what love really is.
Emotional abuse can come from both men and women. You can be conditioned from a young age to believe you are not good enough from your parents, and then a baton is passed along to a romantic partner to carry on the work of bashing your self-esteem.
There is a new law that is being proposed by Theresa May, the current UK Home Secretary, to make emotional abuse illegal in a relationship, with long prison sentences of up to 14 years.
The chief executive of charity Women's Aid, Polly Neates currently says:
Domestic violence is primarily a pattern of abuse, not a singular incident. Yet due to the gap in legislation, police officers are currently forced to focus on individual acts of physical violence. An offence which recognises repeated controlling abuse and the harm caused to victims must be created must be created to equip the police to do their job effectively and better protect victims of domestic abuse.
Emotional abuse, on a consistent basis, should be an offence as it can sometimes have longer lasting effects than the physical cuts and bruises which heal within a few days or weeks, however painful they may be at the time.
A survivor of emotional abuse has to cope with the daily pain of digging up the remains of life and self-esteem through discovery within a fragile self. Coping with the invisible bondages under the generic labels of depression or anxiety, due to the constant stuffing you had to do of your feelings under a thick rug. And then, trying to learn to love that voice that was so mean inside your head, when your beloved turned against you, time and time again.
Counselling sometimes doesn't work, with the search for a good counsellor being as difficult as finding another 'soulmate'. The victim can turn to booze for the answer and for some quick, numb relief, only to find themselves in a worse off position than before, as alcohol becomes part of the daily routine; a coping mechanism filled with excuses.
So, regarding this legislation, I believe something needs to be done to prevent controlling partners from disallowing their significant others from seeing friends, from dressing 'wrongly' and from displeasing them into rage, leaving behind a broken spirit at the bottom of an empty glass.
We are talking about human rights. There are #16days of activism against the violence of women starting on 25th November and ending on 10th December which is Human Rights Day.
What will, or what can you do? Maybe you can just do this one thing: speak out!
I will be sharing poems on my Facebook Page, so do LIKE and check back over the next 16 days to read more of what I have to say on this subject matter.
To all of the women (and men) out there who have been conditioned to feel like you are not good enough. You are. You always have been. You just never knew yourself well enough to stand up for yourself, until now. Be the greatness inside of you that is waiting to get out, and don't let anyone dim your flame. Not ever.