Your past does not define you.

Read that again.

It’s easy to let your past define who yo are and say “well I am this way because of this” and while yes, the past does shape who you are it does not DEFINE you. I am not my past because of choices that someone made.

Recently, I shared on Instagram about my past with domestic violence and so many women reached out saying they too went through similar situations and my heart just broke. It broke because I wished I had said something sooner but also because there are so many out there who have fallen victim to this. Many of who did not get to survive. That’s where I get the chills regarding this because that could’ve been me.

I’ve spent so much time wishing back the girl who I was before that relationship.

But what I’ve come to realize the last few months of working on myself is that the girl who I was before I met him is very much dead and gone. That girl doesn’t exist anymore and while that’s a difficult pill to swallow, it’s the absolute truth. I’ve risen, been knocked down again, cried, screamed, and come out on the other side. Definitely not unscathed because I suffer from depression and anxiety due to what he did. It’s been an uphill battle to fight those demons for me. I have spent many years saying I have these problems but never even attempting to work on them. Instead, I used them as a crutch. I was the way I was because I had depression and anxiety is what I would always say. I never even tried to fix it.

I was letting this one man continue to have a hold over me.

I had to do something because it had been 10 years since he last laid a hand on me but somehow, he still had control over me. I was still holding onto so much anger and resentment for him. Anger at myself for letting it happen as long as it did. Anger for not saying something to anyone when it was happening. Resentment towards him for having done what he did and for crushing who I was. I turned into someone who didn’t recognize herself in the mirror anymore.

I was letting my past define me.

In that time, I almost lost my husband and he told me he couldn’t pick me up off the floor anymore. He was just too tired to do it again. Something that night snapped inside me and I researched all the homeopathic things I could do to get better. I started praying more, I took my CBD religiously, added in a few more supplements and also started looking into parenting seminars to control the postpartum rage I had developed.

It’s a work in progress

I am nowhere near where I wanna be with my mental health or my relationships with people. I still have rages of anger and while I catch myself most of the time, I don’t always. I’m working on it and that’s all that matters. I’m working towards being the mom and wife my husband and kids deserve. Being the friend people deserve to have. Being the daughter my parents deserve and the sister my siblings deserve.

I’m working on gaining back a less naive version of the girl I was before he took that first punch or said that first demeaning word.

I won’t ever be the same. I will always have scars from the mental and emotional damage he did. I won’t be able to forget the screams of “I will be the only one who will ever love your fat ass” BUT I can channel that into something else. And that’s exactly what I’ll be doing.

I won’t let my past define me. But I won’t forget that it made me who I am.