Abuse Recovery: A Story of Hope and Courage

april 25th blog

 

April is abuse awareness month and its honor we have been posting various inspiration stories from women involved with MIHI! The following is one of them. I would personally like to thank Perfect for her candor, courage and bravery in sharing her story with us today.

By Perfect T:

 

For the past 19 years of my life I have been hiding behind a smile that led all those around me to believe that I am perfectly happy and that I live a perfect life with very little hurt and pain. The truth behind the smile I put on every morning before school or leaving the house was a girl who was in physical and emotional pain from the abuse that she experienced throughout her childhood and early teen years.

Growing up my parents would constantly fight about any and everything. One of the things my parents fought about growing up was my dad physically abusing me. My mom would see my dad put his hands on me and tell him to stop. My mom’s attempt to protect me started many of the brutal fights I witnessed growing up. At a very young age I began to feel responsible for their fights.

I remember the first time I realized that my parents and everyone else around me would be better off if I was not around. I was no younger than 6 years old when I walked to the front door of the condo that we lived in at the time, and told my mom that I was going to run away. I thought that it would be a good idea to let her know that I was running away, so that she wouldn’t worry about where I went. When I told my mom I was running away, she responded by saying, Okay, bye. (At the time I didn’t know that she didn’t know I was serious about running away, so she didn’t take it seriously). When she spoke those words to me my thought about my self-worth and responsibility for the fights and the abuse were confirmed. I spent so many nights growing up praying to God. I asked God, Why? Why was all of this happening? I would tell him that I was sorry for everything I did wrong and I would never do it again or anything else that would disappoint him, if he would make my parents stop fighting and make the abuse stop. Once I was done praying I cried myself to sleep. I was only a child at the time.

As time went on my parents fights got worse and so did the abuse. By the time I was in middle school I was being abused almost on a daily basis. I was terrified to come home from school because I knew what I was going home to. The more I was abused physically and emotionally, the more often my parents fought. There were many nights growing up where the police had to be called due to the intensity of the fights. The fights would start off as a verbal argument and eventually turn into a physical altercation.

Right before I entered 7th grade my dad left my mom, my two younger sisters and I. When my dad left I felt like my prayers were answered but I also felt abandoned and responsible for my parents separation. I continued to blame myself for everything that happened and questioned my worth and purpose in life. After my dad left I began to feel an emptiness within me, that I tried to fill with relationships and worldly things. I began to distance myself from God, not knowing that He was the only One that could fill the emptiness I felt inside.

My freshman year of high school came along, and I struggled with how I looked and my self-worth as a result of the abuse. I didn’t think I was thin enough (when in fact I was). I began to starve myself and exercise excessively. My unrealistic goal of being thin continued for about a year until I started to use food to help numb the pain that I felt inside. As a result I gained more than 50 pounds.

As time went on I made myself forget about all that had happened.

For a few years I found myself battling with my faith. At times I would turn to God, and other times I would turn away from God. During this battle I began to realize that I no longer had the child-like faith and strong relationship with God that I once had growing up. The shame I felt inside from the abuse made me turn away from God. I thought to myself, God doesn’t want me. I am an embarrassment to Him. He can’t possibly love someone like me. When in reality He loved me despite of everything that happened to me and everything I did to fill the emptiness that I felt within me. God didn’t love me less during my darkest hours, but more because it is at our darkest moments that God loves us the most.

In the fall of 2011 I began my freshman year of college at Mount St. Mary’s University. During my first year at Mount St. Mary’s University I noticed the pure joy and happiness that everyone involved with their faith had. When I saw this I knew I wanted to have the same joy that they had. I began to strive for what they had. I started to attend Sunday mass, RCIA classes, and a FOCUS bible study. As I attended mass, bible study, and RCIA classes on a weekly basis my faith and love for Christ slowly grew. Later on that year I was confirmed into the Catholic Church on the feast day of Divine Mercy.

This past summer I started to experience the effects of abuse from my childhood once again. I began to starve myself and excessively exercise for months. I hated what I saw in the mirror. When school began I feared that my friends and my roommate would find out what I was doing to myself, but those were the least of my worries when I began to experience anxiety and panic attacks. December came along, and I was talking to one of my friends about how I wanted to look my best for our trip to a FOCUS conference in Florida, knowing in the back of my head I was planning on starving myself once again.

When she heard me say this she turned and looked at me and said, Perfect, you are beautiful and when you call yourself ugly you are calling God ugly. Those words forever changed my life. The next day she wrote a blog post about calling God ugly and sent it to me. These were the first of many blog posts she would send me. She soon introduced me to Made in His Image and the blog posts she wrote for the site, and not just her personal blog website. She later on became one of my good friends. By God’s grace and her involvement in my life, I began to notice the effects that abuse had on me and how much I needed to seek help and counseling (which I did, with a lot of courage).

About a month later I attended the FOCUS Conference (SEEK 2013). I experience the love that Christ had for me during this conference. I was even lucky enough to experience The Holy Spirit’s presence after my first Adoration. I left this conference with my heart set on fire for Christ. Through God’s mercy and love for me I have been made new. It is through Him that I have been made brand new. He has turned a story of pain, struggle, and worthlessness into a story of beauty and transformation. When I look in the mirror I see a daughter of a King and nothing less. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. – 2 Corinthians 5:17

I am no longer my old self but this doesn’t mean I don’t make mistakes and struggle, because I do. But when I make mistakes or find myself struggling I turn to the Lord because I am not on this journey alone. I am on a journey with Christ.

When we suffer, God suffers with us. When we cry, God cries more tears than we cry. God hates seeing His children in pain and suffering, it breaks His heart. God did not want me to suffer or go through the pain I went through. Just like He didn’t want me to suffer or experience pain, He doesn’t want you to suffer. He wants to heal you and bring you out of suffering and pain. So in times of pain and suffering turn to God for He will comfort and heal you with His unfailing love.

As my mom reminded me recently abuse is not your fault.

P.S. You are enough

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