Bear Hugs

     "Deep down, everyone wants to believe they can be hardcore. But being hardcore isn’t just about being tough. It’s about acceptance. Sometimes you have to give yourself permission to not be hardcore for once. You don’t have to be tough every minute of every day. It’s okay to let down your guard. In fact there are moments when it’s the best thing you can possibly do… as long as you choose your moments wisely."- Meredith Grey from Grey’s Anatomy

      At a certain point in our lives we all learn how to become tough. Whether it means standing up for yourself in your work center, telling the mean kid on the bus to leave you alone, or learning how to walk away from an unhealthy situation. Through these learning experiences we not only become tough, but we learn how to build walls. No wall is the same. Some people build their walls out of sheet rock, easily knocked down. Others build theirs out of brick, slowly but steadily laying down a layer at a time. Walls help people to do things that they normally wouldn’t have the strength to do. I started building my wall at a young age, as I’m sure you can imagine. My wall was made out of cement, thick, strong, no holes or cracks. With this wall I was able to make decisions a nine year old girl should not have to make.

     It was just another night in my house hold, parents fighting, my mother threatening to leave my father, my little brother anxiously sitting on my bed while I tried to distract him by building forts, or constructing Lego’s with the estranged pieces that we found under my bed or in my closet.  The fighting usually continued for hours, as I listened to my mother tell my father to get a real job, or my father call her a bitch or whore because she talked to other men on the internet. Occasionally a glass item would get thrown across the room and smash into pieces. One night I walked out of my room, thinking that the fighting had stopped. I instructed my brother to stay in my room, or go to his until I came back. When I got to the living room I found my mother in a bear hug with my father with a knife to her throat. I remember getting the closest phone, and my nine year old self called the cops. I drug my brother back to my room and we sat there until I saw the red and blue lights flashing around creating an almost strobe like effect in my room. I didn’t see my father after that night for almost six months. My mother told me he went to a psych ward. Three months after I turned ten, only about a year after the “bear hug” ordeal, my mother finally filed for a divorce. I remember the two of them sitting me and my brother down on the concrete edge of our driveway demanding us to choose who we wanted to live with, and at age ten I learned how to choose. For better or for worst. 

     Like I end most of my posts so far, I urge any of my readers if you or a loved one have been abused, attacked, or raped please seek help. It’s never too late to get help, or remove yourself and loved ones from an unhealthy situation. Remember it is always darkest before the dawn! You do not have to go it alone. There is always hope.

This is my story.