Why Don’t They Just Leave?
I’ve addressed the topic of Domestic Violence in the past, but often those outside such a relationship ask the inevitable question, “Why don’t they just leave?” I’ve been asked this quite a few times lately, so…
I was thinking about this in connection to adult children, breaking off ties with abusive parents and siblings. It took me way too many years to leave, to sever all ties and communication with my mother and brothers. Every moment of every day since has been nothing less than a blessing; however, it also carries with it some pain. There is a connection to family that will always be there despite what they’ve done.
I have a wonderful husband and fantastic kids; I have more brothers and sisters born to my heart than I can count. I am surrounded by genuine friends that deeply care for and love me in the most authentic way. I am well respected personally and professionally. There is all of that and so much more. None of it, though, can substitute for the nurturing of a mother and support or protection of an older brother. Everyone wants that. It’s a connection deeply rooted in our soul from the time of our creation.
For years, I lived through the cycle of having those family members draw me back into their web of abuse. They’d pretend to care, offering to spend authentic, quality time with me, briefly treating me the way I had always longed to be treated by them. The pattern was nothing more than a manipulation to draw me back in and I fell for it time after time. I whole heartedly wanted that healthy connection with them. I wanted to believe things had changed. I wanted to believe they were working hard to do better, to be better human beings. I wanted to believe they had remorse for how badly they treated me. I wanted to believe they valued me. I wanted to believe they genuinely loved me so I would push down my early life experiences of abuse and neglect, and allow them back in my life. It wasn’t long for their true colors would emerge. They always did and without fail, and each and every time I’d be trampled by the same song and dance of their physical and emotional bullying, their denial, and their tirades of looking down on me, along with their ambushes of ridicule. They didn’t want me in their life because they loved me. They wanted me around because it makes them feel big to make someone else feel small.
At four years old when I first spoke out about the sexual abuse I was suffering, the adult I told in the family shamed me and broadcast a picture of me to everyone else as a demented liar. It was repeatedly said that I was trouble and should not be believed. This was done to cover up their betrayal. As long as I wasn’t seen as honest, healthy, and well, their deceptions weren’t threatened. …..Imagine, actively spreading gossip that your child is unwell and a liar…your four-year-old child who is being sexually abused. Then, as an adult when I spoke up for myself, there was an attack to once again make me feel small and unforgiving and said “NO MORE!”
I don’t know which is worse: the initial childhood abuse or walking back into the mental abuse as an adult – again and again.
It took a long time to learn my family’s cycle was doomed to continue with or without me. My personhood provided a victimhood but that was not my core character. I realized that having a relationship with those that invested in breaking my heart would continue to beat down my spirit and make me feel small. I concluded that some people only feel big in life if they leave a scar. That is what they liked about being around me. The greater the scar they left, the bigger they felt. Wounded people slinging their own pain.
I worked to heal, not the least of it was recognizing the debilitating guilt and shame I carried every day. Shame that didn’t belong to me but was reinforced every time I connected with my family.
But I did heal. Eventually I came to the place where I recognized how the childhood trauma I suffered blessed me. The scars held an enormous amount of love. A love I was willing to give over and over again to the world, and to everyone in it but it was a love without boundaries and that is the most dangerous kind of love there is.
So I learned to honor myself, demanding respect, ending conversations, and walking away when something didn’t serve me well. I said “no” when I really wanted to. I said “no” A LOT. I still say “no” a lot. I withdrew from disrespectful people, stopped answering the phone, blocked calls and texts. If a person was toxic, I removed them from my life. Honestly, in the beginning I was quite lonely, but the upside was I experienced tremendous peace. My soul was learning to rest and was receiving the self-care it desperately needed for so long.
Removing them from my life, they could no longer continue their deception. They were without the family scapegoat as I was off building the incredible life I am living now. And everyone from neighbors, to family, to distant relatives, and old family friends started to see the truth, of how things really were, and how badly I was truly treated and by whom.
It wasn’t easy to walk away. Even when I found the strength they did everything they could to keep some kind of control in my life, to bestow smallness and to play with my heartstrings. I mention this here because it illustrates the destructive pathological extremes of toxic family members, and humans that only feel big if they can leave a scar.
After years of sexual abuse by family members, being shamed and maimed by my mother at 4 years old, she went as far as to take legal action when I removed her from my life, portraying herself as a feeble old lady unfairly separated from her granddaughter. This lawsuit for visitation rights did not go well for her or in her favor and further affirmed the need for me to fully remove all contact.
With all of this behind me now and thinking back I imagine this part of my life is much like one lived by someone involved in a relationship full of domestic violence. The victim is lured back with sweet words, words they need, words they’ve longed to hear. There is a deep need for love and connection, hope for maturity, promises of change, denials and reprieve that happen again and again and crushing heartbreak when the violence returns.
I remember myself feeling broken, confused, and isolated always asking myself why. Escaping a relationship of this magnitude is one of the hardest things a person has to do. Their lives are often times in extreme danger.
So my answer to the “why don’t they just leave” question is simple – Let’s not judge those who haven’t escaped. We all have relationships we need to get out of. Look around you. We may not be in their exact shoes, but they are ashamed and struggling enough. If it were as simple as some people think we would all have “just left.” Leaving is a very complicated and, frankly, a dangerous choice. I can say from experience just with my family, it took all the strength and courage I could muster, and there wasn’t much left in me after a crushing childhood and daily beat downs physically, mentally, and emotionally.
❤️Kerri
© Kerri McKenna Reece | Kerri Chronicles | Kerri Coaching, LLC.
Read more of Kerri Chronicles:
Don’t let a boy keep you from a man