For Every Day a Strategy

Every second of every day you are a strategist when you are living in an abusive situation. You are constantly coming up with a new strategy, trying to think 3 steps ahead, in order to try and evade the dangers. Scanning for warning signs, taking precautions, or settling for the smaller evils in order to avert the big ones.

I find it so peaceful now. When I can just be, and I am not always planning ahead, worrying about some pending doom. I still strategize, but there is one very big difference.

The strategies are no longer about stopping the craziness, they are about protecting myself from it.

For example: shortly after cutting contact I prepared myself for a possible ambush. That was a reasonable possibility, so I prepared. I thought about what their arguments would likely be, and how I wanted to respond. I practiced my speech in my head, at the mirror and in front of my partner. Then I felt prepared. Whenever I would go to places where I felt a greater risk of the ambush (like when visiting my sisters) I would run the speech through my mind while I traveled. The ambush finally happened 6 months after cutting contact. I managed to just rattle off the speech, it was only a few sentences but it was enough. Because I had practiced the panic and anger did not come into play until after I left the house.

For me strategizing now is about thinking about how I want certain situations to play out, if they do come to pass. It is more about visualizing a positive outcome, than a panicked attempt to stop bad things from happening. That may not sound like much of a difference, but it really is.

Fly Free,

Mags

Originally published at swanwaters.com on November 5, 2015.