Im sitting in Starbucks sipping on my coffee after getting the bus into the city centre. On the bus I was scrolling through my inbox, briefly reading through messages, I only got through 6/7 messages as there is over 100k messages in my inbox. Message from women, men & Children…. all confiding in me, people desperate to share their story with me.
Im so saddened at the amount of abuse that is in our world, I’m not shocked I’m just saddened. What saddens me more is this…. There is one thing all of those messages have in common… Nearly every message I read tells me that they have no friends left, they can’t talk to their family because their family stopped talking to them, they tell me that they are so isolated, lonely.. and some of them tell me they see no way out…
It saddens me and quite frankly angers me to read that.. Don’t try to understand your friend if she’s in an abusive relationship, or she keeps going back to him.. Don’t ask her “how can you love someone who hits you? Don’t try to put yourself in her shoes because you have no idea what is going through her mind.Its not your responsability or job to understand her or question her……. just be there for her when she needs you because I promise you she WILL need you and not for you to turn around and say ” I TOLD YOU SO” we all need a friend and we all need our family no matter how much they don’t listen to you.
We all live our own lives and make our own decisions, we go through life and yes we make mistakes, no one is perfect? not even you?? If we don’t make mistakes can can we learn from them? Every relationship is different, every situation is different and every abused women has her own story, don’t try to tell her what to do? Don’t abandon her just because she won’t listen to your harsh reasons on why she should leave? She knows she should leave of course she knows that, but if it was that simple she would have left already right???
Love is so beautiful but yet so dangerous, love is particularly dangerous when you fall in love with someone when you are at your lowest, when you are at your most vulnerable…… You have no control over your emotions, your judgments is clouded. Take that form someone who knows. I got into a relationship when I was extremely vulnerable……. and look how that turned out.
Obviously when you first meet someone its all great and amazing, most of the time there are no flaws at the beginning, its all about the honeymoon period……. Then you say the LOVE word and things can change starting off slowly, but by this stage you are in love…….. leaving the person you love it not a nice thought is it?
If you have a friend, daughter, sister, cousin, aunt, niece who is in an abusive relationship, please please don’t leave her to fend for herself, support her by listening to her, she needs to speak to you, she needs to hear her own voice, let her talk to you, don’t shut her out, you are doing more damage that you know. You are proving to her just how scary it is to be alone…. Be her FRIEND, be that shoulder for her to cry on… Don’t be so quick to advise her on what she should do… Don’t be so quick to judge.
Ask yourself how you would feel if your friends all left you, and that one person that you love in the whole wold is treating you like shit, ask yourself how strong you would feel????? You wouldn’t be strong at all would you? It would knock you down so far that you feel worthless and pointless.. You probably wouldn’t see the point of existing in this world.
If you have a friend that you distanced yourself from in the past or present make a call, send a text and just tell her you are there for her. Believe it or not but you could save her life.
