ADVICE RATING |
 4.98 (Highly recommend) from 35 votes (441 Visits) |
Physical Abuse is so much easier to prove to the rest of the world
You will always have marks or scars to show
of course you can always try to hide them from people but..
You always know why you are hurting
There is a centre focal point for the pain you are in.
Most people will believe you and want to help
But internal bruises are so deep no one can see them. Not even You!
When recovering slowly from my depression but still living with my Ex, I used to flinch every time he came near me. He couldn't understand it and I couldn't explain it either.
But it felt to me like my whole body was one giant bruise, even a gentle tap on the shoulder from one of the children would make me want to cry out with pain. I didn't know what was going on. I just knew I was in constant pain.
I could not bear to be touched in any way, shape or form, even a simple good night kiss from the children was just too much.
It was like all I could hear all day long in my head was screams of pain but I couldn't work out where they were coming from.
One day, I was in the car with my Ex, my best friend who was over for a few weeks from Australia and another argument had broken out. Of course it was my fault, I had "mistakenly been confused" by a comment he had flung at me. I kind of remember just shutting off as he was trying to explain that I had got him all wrong again.....When the car stopped I had a strange sensation on my finger of something sticky, I looked down and I had scratched off several layers of skin from the back of my hand, there was a lot of blood and my hand looked a bit of a mess. I screamed!!!
My friend and my Ex were shocked and my friend took me away into the big supermarket we were parked at and told my Ex to stay in the car. The sad thing was that I felt soooooo Good!
I had finally got what I had been looking for....
A reason for the pain I was in.........
My hand was throbbing and complete agony, but I felt so unbelievably relaxed, it was going to be okay, I was in so much pain but it was because of my hand, now I knew why it was hurting.
My friend was amazing and talked it through with me. She and I are more like sisters and I knew I had frightened her. She didn't want me to go down the path of self harming, naturally.
The shame of what I had done, finally kicked in and for a long while even my children thought I had scrapped my hand badly against a wall, but there had been enough lies and they deserved the truth. To this day I can still see the disappointment on my daughters face that I had done it.
I have never understood the complexities of self harm before this point in my life, but suddenly I understood. Through the loving and strong support of my family this was the only occasion I did harm myself.
Sometimes there are no bruises to show on people that are hurting, but that doesn't make it hurt any less, in some ways it can hurt more as you constantly search your mind to justify the pain that you are in.
If you ever find yourself in that kind of pain, be patient with yourself, you have taken a severe bashing, it just didn't leave any outward marks, but they are there all the same, festering under the surface......
(May 2007) (
