When I thought about starting a blog about my experience I was terrified. I have spent so much of the last 10 years that way though, it was not a dealbreaker. The next step was asking why. Why do I want to blog about this? I mean, isn’t writing about this sort of thing like reliving it?

I spend a lot of time with my therapist thinking through this sort of thing, and I’ve joined a support group. I finally found a church I like. I wasn’t sure why I wanted to talk about it, not for a long time. It has been 10 months since I made it out, and I think I know the answer. I want to help others. Maybe others in this situation could benefit from my story. I know that when I started working towards my freedom that was one of the first things I did: seek out the firsthand accounts. I also realized I wanted to help others who didn’t understand what abuse can really look like. I didn’t even recognize my own abuse for years. Even when professionals directly told me that is what it was, I denied it. I’m blogging to help people who aren’t going through it to realize and understand that abuse is not what so many think, and its effects are so much more varied than the widespread knowledge is to be believed.

Part of rebuilding my life was beginning to find myself again. I have always been a writer. Finishing my projects might be difficult, but I have always been a writer. It was common for me to be pushed down and made to feel small, so I stopped. Writing helps me synthesize, but it also is because I believe people are human because of our stories. I want to keep telling them. Sometimes I write stories from my imagination, and other times I write other peoples’ actual lives. It is just finally time for me to work toward writing my own.