Fighting back

I didn't think of her as much today.
I was distracted with happy thoughts and healthy interactions instead: a car full of loving women asking and answering heart-felt questions, a table full of treats and tea, kids full of exuberance and laughter.

But she was still there. In the back of my head. Trying to get my attention back on her. Trying to steal my presence. 

Standing up to her abuse looks like taking back my present--moments with my kids, moments with my husband, moments with myself. I'm going to enjoy my moments. Savor them! Little by little I'm going to starve her out of the corner of my brain where she lives on my thoughts and cares. 

This is what I need others to understand: that she lives on my thoughts about her. That the abuse continues as long as I remember her. As long as people are asking me to answer "how's your ***?" questions, as long as my kids are interacting with her, as long as we have mutual friends, she'll continue to live and the abuse will continue to wound. She had 19 years and 4 months to train my brain to think only of her and her needs. It's going to take at least that long to retrain it not to be concerned with her thoughts or needs. 

I grew up thinking abuse was people hurting you on purpose because they like seeing people hurt. I thought I knew what it would look like - bruises, broken bones, cuts. It turns out, abuse can look like cutting someone off from other relationships, constantly putting someone down, screaming in a child's face, and blaming the victim for having created the problem. People who are being abused don't know they're being abused. I don't know what the rest of the world is supposed to do when they see abuse, but they need to know that people who are being abused don't know they're being abused. I'm starting to wonder if the abusers know they're abusing.