Dedication: To those who offer words of kindness and to those who need kindness.
Resilient: A Survivor’s Path to Triumph
It took me 25 years to understand what was wrong with me. It all started when I turned 18
and I decided to go live with the one who I thought was the love of my life. I was very young and
completely in love with my captor, who was 12 years older than me. It was my first love affair,
and I thought that since he already had life experience, he would take care of me.
And take care of me, he did! He took such good care of me that he almost killed me, but that was
only because he was afraid to lose me (like Crono, a Titan from Greek mythology, who swallowed
his children at birth to keep them forever within him).
After telling him that I wanted to break up, he called me asking to meet for a last talk. I decided to
go, because why not? Everyone deserves the chance to talk or to explain what’s going on inside of
them. Break ups aren’t easy for anyone.
Our appointment was close to a fast food restaurant, a pretty isolated place, except for families
with their children, excited to receive the surprise of the week inside their meal.
I arrived on my scooter while he was parking his motorbike. It was a matter of seconds, only the
time it took me to look down at the kickstand of my scooter when I felt someone yanking at my hair
and found myself thrown against the wall. I was there, pinned against the wall; he had both of his
hands around my neck and a look that I will never forget in my life, like he was possessed by evil. His
words were: “You are going to die tonight.” I could barely breathe but I had the chance to whisper:
“Please stop, don’t do it. If you hurt me, it’s really over…”. These words made him loosen his grip,
maybe these words gave him for a millisecond the hope that I still belonged to him? I don’t know,
but that millisecond saved my life. Once he threw me on the floor he began to kick me in the face
and punch me. After forcing me to stand up, he dragged me away from the fast food parking lot
towards an open field, the place where death was waiting for me.
At some point I felt his grip become looser, and that’s when I managed to wriggle free and started
running. I don’t remember exactly how long it took me to get to the scooter, but once I got there it
was just a click to turn it on and speed off (luckily, I had left the keys in the ignition.) As I left the
parking lot, I saw several wide-eyed people who were watching what was happening to
me, and I thought “Why did no one do anything? Where are the police?”
While on my way to freedom, I realized that he was following me on his motorcycle. He came closer
and started kicking, trying to push me off the road. Luckily, I managed to turn into an alley that
suddenly appeared in front of me and from there on I was “safe.”
Was that the first time he had hurt me? Of course not. Only this time he was determined to finish
me because he really understood that it was over and he could not accept it.
Yeah… this is what happens with these kinds of psychopaths: they turn evil as soon as they
understand that you are ready to leave them, that you are no longer willing to surrender, and that
you no longer intend to be their victim. I stood up for myself, refusing to be mistreated and
manipulated by him. I even left my country to escape my executioner, but above all to find myself
again. Yes, because this is what happens when you fall into the hands of a mentally disturbed
person -you lose everything: dignity, awareness of time and place, respect for those around you,
but above all, respect for yourself. You become nothing more than a puppet tied to strings that only
he has the right to maneuver. You are no longer allowed to think or speak, you are their possession
and woe to you if anyone else gets close to you, especially people who try in every way to make you
understand that you are in danger. You are isolated from everything that he considers a threat to
his domination, and you are left alone thinking that the only person you have is him and that you
have no way out. During the time I spent far away from home while I was healing, I started to dig
inside myself, searching for the reason why I ended up in a situation like that.
As Albert Einstein says: “The way to achieve peace is through understanding.”
So, I started to write down my feelings and I realized that most of the things I was writing ended
with a question mark. I was analyzing myself, and I started to find a lot of gaps -eventually, gaps
that made me make bad choices including being with this monster.
Once I started to find my answers, I also started to feel better and stronger. I started to look around
asking myself if the life I was living was what I wanted, if what I had was enough and if it was time
to stop hiding, not only from the person who hurt me but also from the person who I really was.
That was my first step forward healing.
One day, suddenly, while I was looking at my reflection in the mirror, I realized that it was the first
time in long while that I could see my face.
I remembered Anais Nin saying: “We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.”
I saw a little girl with eyes full of hope and a great desire to live. I started touching my face, stroking
my nose and lips and I risked a smile, wondering how long it had been since the last time I had
looked at myself in the mirror and liked what I saw. I think I stopped seeing my image in the mirror
from the moment I began that sick relationship with that insane person. But those times were now
over, and I was ready to run towards life that had suddenly opened its doors to me and was waiting
for me with open arms, ready to launch me into the most extraordinary adventures I could have
ever imagined.
It was from this moment on that I understood that I existed and I mattered.
It wasn’t easy to trust again, especially after being betrayed by the person who was supposed to
protect me. It takes time, patience, strength. The person that remains of you, after a failure like
that, is nothing more than a body devoid of sensations and feelings, confused and insecure,
annihilated in existence and full of scars. Here, these scars are the very things which will help you to
start living again. I’m talking about internal scars that will remain there forever and that you will try
at all costs to protect. I started with them, I started looking at them with eyes full of compassion
and talking to them. I asked them how they were doing, and I even started, with my imagination, to
give them colors. It was my scars that gave me the strength to start again because with them I felt
stronger and many times untouchable. They made me feel strong because I knew exactly why and
how they had become part of me.
I even decided to get a tattoo, a blue rose, on the right side of my shoulder. I did it so as not to
forget what had happened to me but primarily as a sign of the beginning of a new life.
“Una rosa blu” (a blue rose) is the title of an Italian singer-songwriter, Michele Zarrillo, and it says: ”
With that tattoo of the blue rose which is your courage and your extra resource… A tattoo because
you go where you go, to the beach or wherever you want as long as you can run away… I realize,
step by step, that it will never go away…”
It was a visible expression of what Chloë Frayne said: “It was love, and I lived it. And it is grief, and I
will carry it.” And there I was, carrying proudly my grief that opened the door to a new life.
I began to put my life in order, I restarted building a new life again. Initially, it wasn’t easy to put my
trust in other people again, and it still isn’t easy sometimes. But I started again, slowly, and
managed to rebuild a new, but above all, healthy world around me. The time had come to grow up,
mature and look forward. I felt an indescribable inner strength, a desire to make up for the time I
had wasted. I began to notice that my smiles, my good mood and my desire to live attracted
wonderful people. I managed to defeat the demons that occasionally popped up in my mind, trying
to bring me back to that abyss. I came out victorious, resuming my journey with confidence and
serenity, fully enjoying even the moments that seemed discouraging. I had survived the worst life
had thrown me.
It was like a rebirth and it was something magical. The phases that are faced by a physically and
psychologically abused person require time and patience to sort out and process.
But I guarantee that you can be reborn as a new person and even stronger than before. It
is a long journey that requires a lot of strength and determination. It requires all the goodwill you
have within you, but never be ashamed to ask for help to continue moving forward. It is true that
the first person to save you is yourself, but you also need help from others. I can ensure that there
are many good people surrounding you; I have nicknamed them angels.
Today, I am a different person: strong, confident and always ready to face the adventures that life
presents. I am always ready and available to help those women who are experiencing what I
experienced. I see them. I recognize them, I recognize their movements and the sound of their
voices… Every time it’s as if I take a journey into the past to say hello to my old self and then take
the person who asked me for help by the hand and bring them into my new dimension, an
extraordinary dimension worthy of being experienced.
There will always be times in your life when you will ask yourself if you did something wrong to
deserve such brutal treatment from another human being, and times when doubts and insecurities
will want to take over… what you can do is sit and wait, wait for your heart to calm down and for
your soul to breathe again. Fully accept your new self, embrace it tightly and be proud of yourself.
You are not just a warrior who survived a battle but rather a beautiful blossom who emerged after
an apocalypse.
Never forget that you are enough. I am proud of you.
~
Photo credit: Image provided by the storyteller.