I’ve been thinking about whether I actually wanted to write this blog for a few weeks. I know we could make this into a discussion about whether this should be violence in relationships but given i’m female this affects me on a personal level. What exactly do I mean when I say violence and women? Do you need to be actually hit to fear being hit?

I want to be clear, i’m not writing this to hurt anyone. This is not about them. This is about me and what i’ve been through. Please don’t read this and think i’m writing this to get back at anyone. I want to highlight what women go through and how it makes us feel.

I ended a relationship at the beginning of the year, it wasn’t all bad or I wouldn’t have stayed for so long. It was only violent when he was having Bipolar swing and at the end he would say he didn’t remember raising his hands to me or threatening me. In his mind because he didn’t remember it, it didn’t happen. The rest of the time was fine, unless he was drinking heavily but I lived in fear of the times where he would start slipping. It’s not a great way to live.

I went a few dates with a man a few weeks ago and I started noticing the warning signs with him. It ended badly with him behaving in a very dominating, threatening way, to the point where I spent the last few weeks in tears every time I thought about him and found it hard to be alone. I felt so unsafe. I don’t know what made him think it was ok to behave that way. He made it all about my behaviour and yet didn’t take into consideration the way he was behaving was scary.

Words are not weapons to be used to hurt others. When you care about someone you shouldn’t want to hurt the other person just because you feel hurt. That’s just dysfunctional and quite frankly fucked up.

I know i’m not the only woman to go through this, the statistics say otherwise. The question is do we realise that this is domestic violence? Emotional abuse is just as scarring as physical but because the scars are on the inside people don’t seem to see it. I have to question why more people don’t speak up?

For me I have decided I don’t like the word victim. I don’t like feeling like a victim. I don’t want people to use it to describe me. Yet I am. That’s the thing i’m finding hardest to accept. I feel like a strong independent woman and yet this makes me feel weak. That’s hard to admit for me.

I want to hear about your experiences. Let’s raise each other up as women and talk about how we can stand up for ourselves and not settle for less.