A Love-Letter To My Broken Pieces
This looks like the trenches but this is victory.
My Dearest Broken Pieces,
For the longest time, I watched you get abused, watched you crumble repeatedly under the weight you carried until finally, you gathered yourself and walked away.
Until you cried out to people, no one understood how much you were used and how much of you was broken. People are still shocked at your story even though they still do not know the half and true depth of the abuse you went through.
Somedays you still wake up in cold sweats because you are still getting used to having your life for you and think you are still in the past. Somedays you get so angry- so so angry, at the unfairness of everything you went through at the hands of someone you exalted to godly heights in your life. Somedays you want to love yourself but self-loathing takes over. Somedays you are in the throes of joy and a memory flashes and it takes everything in you to keep going.
The truth is, you made it out alive.
Remember how you told them that day that there was almost a fire at the house and they said, well, you have always said you wanted to die so, what difference would it have made?
Yes, you wanted to die. You thought many times about how much you wanted to end your life. You also thought many times that the abuse could kill you. See, you are out. Alive to tell your own story. Alive to take back your narrative.
People gravitate now towards your quick laughs and get to hear you say repeatedly- be in the moment. Be grateful. They think you are just so wise and so fun. Bless their hearts. They do not know how precious you have found life to be through how much you endured. They do not get how much you continue to fight to not get sucked into the negative toxic emotions swirling just beneath the surface, bubbling, raging to suck you back under.
You just refuse to give in even when the fight is daily and unrelenting. You just set your face and keep going.
Read: I normalized these 4 abusive behaviours.
Dearest broken pieces, You always wonder- how could a human being treat you so cruelly when all you ever did was love them? How could a human being gaslight you, call you paranoid, and emotionally hurt you rather than be honest and just let you go? How could your pain be the adrenaline that fueled their immoral desires? How could they celebrate anniversaries of joy with someone else while they celebrate that you- the witch is dead, even while you live? How could they spew so much hate and bile daily to you until you were broken, wretched, of no repute, and yet, threaten and intimidate you every time you tried to leave?
And you just couldn’t leave right? You were tricked into signing away your freedom?
Read: ‘Just’- The Abuser’s Secret Weapon Of Reduction
Dear broken pieces, you will always wonder at the fact that they were so arrogant about their cruelty and seemingly living their best life while oblivious to the carnage they had left in place of you. Were you so useless? Were you truly the evil they made you out to be to justify this cruelty? How could they even ever justify it?
Are you that worthless that they did not have a care in the world who saw how unjustly they treated you and even announced it while you had to bite your tongue because that was the way to survive? If you were so evil and they were so right, why were they hiding in plain sight? Why are they not now living happily ever after? So for all that cruelty, it was just…for what? Was the pain they caused worth it- to them?
You will always wonder- is there justice? Does evil always prevail? Do good people ever get repaid? Why was God silent even when you prayed, fasted, hoped, cried, believed, and did everything you knew to do until there was absolutely nothing left and yet?
Broken pieces, I am here to remind you that you are strong. Whether you publish this or not, you are strong. Whether anyone else cares or not, you are strong. You are powerful. You are alive. You are again, in charge of your life, and in life, anything (GOOD) can happen.
You will smile always. You will be truly happy again. You will never again enable abuse. You will never again find ways to thrive in abuse. You will continue to thrive and help other people by reminding them of their worth and helping them get out of abuse.
Thank you.
My name is Adaobi Okwy. Please turn on Email Notification for my next post. Also, Buy me coffee?
