I hope that going forwards, I keep in mind some important realisations I’ve come to, as a result of the of the recent abuse I’ve endured and have now described in my posts: ‘An abusive woman called Zlatina’ and ‘The importance of naming abusers’.
I hope I take away an acceptance that there will always be some of the strong who get off on preying on the weak. I hope I take away an acceptance that I will continue to come across people like this in life, by virtue of the fact that I must be a magnet for such people, who feel the need to control, and even own, the minds of others. I hope I now understand that there will be times when I need to fight to override my default of weakness, in order to keep myself from being subjected to that kind of control again.
I’ve noticed that so often, complete strangers will seem to pick up on the emotional fragility I’ve been left with since my accident, when they know absolutely nothing of what I’ve written online. It must be something that’s very obvious about the person I’ve become, this understanding that I can be so easily destroyed. I need to be all the more careful about who I let into my life because of this.
I hope that anyone reading this, who’ve found themselves described in some of my words, also heed this realisation. It’s already difficult for people like us to trust others, but we need to be all the more wary that there will be those who’ll set out to completely own our minds, because of our obvious weakness.
Though I don’t consider weakness in itself to be a flaw – and in fact I think there’s something beautiful about our being able to reveal this truest of true parts of ourselves to the world – we must be able to override it with strength, those times people want to make use of our weakness, because they happen to be the kind that feed on it. It is during these times when we must take care not to retreat into the familiar comfort of our weakness, in the hopes that our abusers will grow a conscience and feel bad for what they’ve done to us. I realise now, that given the chance, an abuser will not stop. Contrary to what people like us might have a tendency to believe, being patient, and possibly becoming weaker in the process, will not appease our abusers. If anything, this will make it even harder for us to break free of them, as we give them more and more of what they want – control.
It is during these times when we must take care not to retreat into the familiar comfort of our weakness, it is during these times when we must strive to be as brave and as strong as the rest of them.
LYNA GALLIARA 