Contributed by the mother of the blogger, Pam Cash.
One of the most important things one can do is use their own life experiences to help others. Sherry Hamby Ph.D. in Psychology Today wrote, "Emotional, autobiographical storytelling can be a path to truly owning your story. Further, by ‘giving it away,’ you can use your own journey as a means to help others on theirs.”I knew this girl once. She suffered from an eating disorder as a child, through her teenage years. When she became a young lady, she didn’t want to talk about it to anyone. She thought that people might look down on her, maybe even blame her parents—who were loving people— for not seeing the signs and getting her help. Who could ever understand? She didn’t really understand herself. Until she was able to openly tell her story to her close friends she was unable to resolve the afflictions in her life. She would have forever been that person with a bad reflection of herself. Years moved on and her greatest regret was never sharing and speaking loud enough to help others. She took the silent path and she never made a difference. That young girl was me.
I knew another girl. She slowly lost herself in a relationship when she was a teenager. She was very young when she met him, and she didn't notice the changes that slowly claimed who she was. It seems crazy I know. She never saw bad behavior at home, she had loving parents, and family beyond that. But as a teenager, she wanted to have a school boyfriend. Nothing more. How can things go so wrong at school? Natasha Tracy at Healthy Place writes that one definition of emotional abuse is “any act including confinement, isolation, verbal assault, humiliation, intimidation, infantilization, or any other treatment which may diminish the sense of identity, dignity, and self-worth."1
In a young relationship, there is also reflection on what will happen once the truth is out in the open. The victim might feel the need to help the person hurting them, the need to feel empathy for their abuser, the love for their abuser’s family. It comes with a lot of self-doubt. What will people think? Will I have to leave my church and social circle? Will anyone still be there for me? Will I be okay? It takes a lot of strength to finally take hold of your life when you are young and have been mentally beaten down by someone who proclaimed to care about you.
The young girl I’m talking about has rebuilt herself, taken hold of her life with time. She had to come to the reality that she was being tormented, walking on eggshells every day, and couldn’t go on with it anymore. It is especially hard knowing she had to keep silent and guarded all his faults. This second young girl is my daughter.
When I think about what she went through in her own world of silence I cannot help but think of what I went through at that same age of my life. The fitting in, the need for friendship, and unlike myself, Ashley had a boy who made her feel important. Eventually, when she realized what she went through in her teen years, Ashley— like myself— had a lot of forgiving to do. While at that age I only had myself to forgive for allowing myself to see me as unworthy, Ashley had to forgive herself and another person. There was more than one person to forgive as the story unfolded, but she did forgive. Unlike myself, Ashley has been able to talk to adults she respected to help her reflect. She went for help and on her journey to recovery, we always heard this verse that we hear all too often in church: "God forgive them for they know not what they do.” As a mother, it was one of the hardest times of my life watching my child start to admit to all she had been through.
Imagine the pain of a mother watching her child suffer. I had never felt this much hurt and sadness since the death of my father. I felt that now I could put the puzzle together, I had seen signs but did not recognize them for what they were. I felt a lot of shame. Others had come to me and told me things that made me start to wonder who the boy my daughter was dating really was. Somehow, I always seemed to be convinced people were making stuff up, or that they were jealous, out to get him. I was always convinced by him, or others, that he was not this person I was starting to get a picture of. I was noticing changes in my daughter, but I had no clue what they meant. They were scattered throughout the relationship like breadcrumbs on the ground trying to lead me somewhere.
In later posts, I will write what I have learned as a mom in hopes to help guide other parents on what clues to look for and what to expect from others—the ins and outs of how you are treated by society. Ninty-nine percent is positive and encouraging, people trying to uplift you, but there will be those who do not like anything that brings up the subject. They will shame and blame your child. They might claim it is revenge. Those people will never truly understand what went on until they open their eyes and see that to end a problem, one must tell their story and demand change. After you have forgiven, grown, and taken back your power, that is the time to start seeking change.
In my Sunday morning class, it was brought up that knowledge is power. I hope people see this blog my daughter is doing and the outreach program she has started as what it is. It is not a rehashing of the past, that is gone, and all is forgiven. It is not another research site, though we do try to provide resources on this blog. This is a place to gain knowledge about the subject of teen dating abuse, and for everyone to know that any obstacle can be overcome. There are people like you. There are people who care about you. There are people that want the cycle of abusive behavior to be talked about for change. My prayers are that someday those who have abused can help others as well. Maybe they can talk about how they made changes in their life to go on and be a better person, if not publicly then to themselves and God.
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