abuse isn't just black eyes

 it's too easy to feel a sense of urgency in a woman stands in front of you two black guys and scratches and bruises on her arms and her man is attacked her it's easy to see where you can help and how you need to get her out of the situation she's in and she stands before you crying but my woman stands for fully crying and she appears to not have a scratch on her and she's trying to tell you that she's still being abused in some way and you won't listen to her because you don't see anymore there's something wrong with you because most of the abuse in this country is not physical violence but is emotional and psychological violence is coercive control and is gaslighting. 

let me tell you a story about a person who thought she got away from the situation that was full of chorus of control and guilt for things like going and getting a cup of coffee not staying and drinking the cup of coffee but just picking it up and coming straight back and the 10 phone calls that she had to take on her way to the coffee shop from a man who is feigning helplessness and ignorance so she had to hurry and couldn't spend 5 minutes talking to a friend who had given her a ride or the coffee shop a woman who had never had a babysitter for her children because no one would help her pay for it after all she was a stay-at-home mom and didn't make any money so everything had to be asked for and after asking for her cleaning supplies she just couldn't be screaming at again for leaving a babysitter cuz she needed a mental health break after all she just painted her living room and he screamed at her the whole time they were in traffic threatening to crash the car and kill them both and told her how he was going to murder her for painting the living room so how could she possibly ask for money for babysitter when she needed so desperately to get some fresh air away from the house that she consistently and constantly took care of 24 hours a day 7 days a week. 

at some point she was strong enough to walk away not before he used her urgency to share divorce attorney and make sure she didn't get anything out of the deals I was going for well she giving up her entire life to raise children sure he kept the house in his name held her pay the house bill made everything seem real copacetic but in the end she could have actually gotten an arrangement where she could have made her way in life but she didn't of course a sociopath matter and interjected himself into her life at that point knowing she's just been diagnosed with a lifelong chronic illness that cause of ear pain and was in the fresh stages of a divorce and got his claws in her cuz she hadn't had no time to heal from the last relationship to this one but this guy was even worse physical violence sexual violence constant cheating and lying STDs so it's a good thing to her ex-husband offered to come back around and help her out after he played years of being her friend and being understanding being the good guy acting like he had changed knowing how to cook taking care of his appointments doing all the things he didn't do when they were married but really what he was doing was waiting for his chance to punish her forever leaving him to begin with so here she was after years of being punched in the head choked to blackout slapped pushed in the walls thrown out of the floor being kicked in her legs that already hurt her from her chronic illness so fibromyalgia and her bad back was a man who claimed to be her friend who she had publicly things for years for doing this or that small favors along the way pretending like he had changed so much and when they were married only to have him say he was moving in to help her feel safe moving in the help of the kids after she's suffered the most indignified physical violence and what he did off the bat was slam every fucking cabinet every fucking drawer every fucking door every fucking time he did anything in the house for the first 18 months a year and 6 months of nothing but slamming every fucking thing that could be slammed in the house constantly making threats to put hands on her because after all so and so got to hit you why can't I screaming at her about every little fucking thing causing her and I have to storm in her room and shut the door and bite her tongue consistently threatening to take away her child support in the help that he was giving her making it impossible for her to move forward while he was there by slamming everything and making her so jumpy and so full of violence and abuse now making sure every last bit of the violent shit suffers drilled into her fucking head fight your way out of that but she did and she felt like crazy he played manipulative games at the people that would come around he played manipulative games with her he would threaten her life every time she tried to make the house better because that's what she did with her money was put it back into her house that she's been taking care of for years and all he would do was scream and yell at her for making these little improvements one time she needed poison ivy spray cuz they're entire backyard was surrounded by poison ivy is so badly that the trunks of it coming through their fence line full of the fur and the hair on him was a base her legs and when she needed the poison to kill it he threatened to go get his gun and shooter in the fucking head for costing him money in the middle of the daytime and she's walking out the door throwing money at her making her pick it up off the ground and all she was doing was trying to make their home livable that's domestic violence that's abuse You might see that woman standing at a counter paying for something some dish soap some floor cleaner dog food and you might not see the bruises on her eyes or her arms but you notice that when you accidentally invest in your cart into a shelf she jumps out of her skin because she's so hyper vigilant She can't even stand there and relax for 5 seconds That's domestic violence You may not see the bruises by the psychological impact stays for a long time and the thing with hyper vigilance and CPSD and I'll give things to come with being treated that way for years is it doesn't get better because you want it to it grates  into your psyche and it becomes worse and you get worse and you get worse and if you're abuser is still around you he grinds it in and he makes fun of you for getting worse and he makes it worse and he knows he's doing it he knows he's doing it there's not a day that passes that this man isn't hurting her in some way That's domestic violence