Personal Narrative: Martial Abuse

It’s the day I have to move to the army's campsite. I grab my bag and swing them on my shoulder, it weighs a ton it feels like my shoulder’s gonna break. Sophie was peeking through my room door, as I was about to stand up she ran to the living room curled up into a ball making loud thud and sobbing noises. Outside of the house, I hug my mom as tight as I could, I don’t want to move any single inch of my bone. I want to stay like this forever. I felt a drop of water behind my shoulder and I know that it was her tears. I don’t want to leave them but I have to. It was time to let go but she didn’t want to, I grab her arm and slightly push them back.

A victim’s mind does not enter into an abusive relationship the same as it, hopefully escapes. Most people are familiar with the honeymoon stage of a new relationship, the excitement, infatuation and methodical self-disclosure that most, if not all people experience and engage in. The gradualism of an abusive relationship is one critical piece of a frightening puzzle.

In therapy, I discovered that I was codependent. I was constantly manipulated by my mother, desperately needing her approval, but to no avail. As I learned to cope with everything my mother had put and puts me through, I realized my self-worth. I was able to help people again. Not only could I help people again, but I willingly accepted help, especially from my therapist. I would talk for four sessions in a row with her never saying anything, and I would reach the conclusions to the problems myself. That’s when I realized that a therapist is exactly what I want to be for the rest of my life.

I combine traditional counseling with intuition to identify the core issues in your current situation and will come up with short term and long term solutions. I can also help you identify personality traits that you learned that are no longer serving you. My sessions will help you transform the way you think and act so you can live a healthier and happier life. Healing original hurts and retraining your brain to think of them in a less self harming way is key to a productive way of

Domestic violence is a very important social problem that we must educate ourselves on because it has such a profound and negative effect on the individual(s) being abused. They are affected mentally, emotionally, physically, and I know from experience that the scars can run very deep. Being in an abusive relationship for three years was devastating to my self-image as a teenager, and because of these feelings of inadequacy, my decreasing esteem allowed me to stay in such a dangerous scenario. Healing from the negative effects of that relationship has been a difficult journey for me, and I can only imagine how much more difficult it must be for women abused for years on end. To this day, I struggle greatly with the ability to let go of my own "control"

It is difficult for a person to understand the feeling of not having any control over his or her body, until he or she has experienced domestic violence. When I came to realize that I had no say over my body, and the only thing left to soar free was my soul, I learned that it was a cruel world out there. However, after two years of unforgivable pain and torment, I decided to get my life back. I went to counseling sessions that my close friend set up for me. The counselor helped me realize that I needed to come to terms with the harsh reality of what was happening. After that, I learned that the abuse was not my fault. This was where I realized that I was not alone, and that I did not deserve the pain.

My long list of achievements have only been efforts to prove to myself that I'm not a wimp. My moments of greatest shame have been when I've been overpowered by others or my own neediness. Or when I've let my someone down. Little things would happen that would leave this "professionally respected, well educated" woman collapsed sobbing, shaking, and cowering in a corner. I would emerge disoriented, emotionally spent, confused about the intensity of my feelings and really, really ashamed. Why does this happen? I've had plenty of therapy. Maybe I flunked therapy. I always felt like such a fraud because people would comment on my strength. Was I really, deep down, crazy? I now know that I was having flashbacks, from PTSD. I now recognize them and that does help. I understand what happens and that provides some logic to the experience, and that makes me feel less crazy. It does not, however, make the flashbacks feel less random. I have chronic PTSD, which means it's not going away. I'll get better at learning to manage it and live with it. But my mind can be yanked back to that hellhole at any moment. That fear is a part of my days, my nights, myself.

Many times personnel who are active in the military and whom are veterans face traumatic experiences related to sexual abuse. Some of them may report their abuse but many of them who experience rape trauma do not report the incident to high up’s who may be their ranking officer. One-third of the personnel in the service are not effectively educated on how to properly report events of abuse or misconduct, and one-fifth believe that the rape is to be expected in the military profession. Abuse within the military is very common but it causes many to face with mental issues because of it. Researchers noted that “Despite its pervasiveness, many clinicians fail to recognize as many as 95% of cases among veterans and active duty personnel” (Valente,

I have not always made the right decision in my life. I have been able to overcome many things to get where I am at today. Everything I have been through is what pushes me today in becoming a competent and ethical counselor. I was given a second chance to really use my life for something good.

Once I got through the grieving process and actually work with the therapists, my healing begun, mentally and physically. My

The personal history of trauma can be a section which can cause vulnerability for me when being a clinician. This is because when I was younger around the age of thirteen or fourteen I experienced domestic abuse. I know how it felt to be a young child, and trying to assimilate the abuse there was in my household. I also experienced abuse a couple of times from my father. While my mother was entangled with trying to “fix” things with my father, which never resolved. I think being a marriage and family therapist, things such as abuse, will be something that causes be to feel negative things towards this issue. I know from first hand it is not something that can end—it becomes a cycle, that is very hard to break when two people are

There's not a single one of us out there that doesn't need to heal from one thing or another, be it emotionally, mentally, or physically.

There is so much that I learned through my counseling and it is primarily the reason I want to be a counselor now. I feel that in spite of what happened to me the basic belief in the Bible and God is what have gotten me to where I am today. Counseling has also helped me to address issues I ignored for too long. I can empathize with others in many areas of molestation, anger repression, family dynamics, and learning to know and love yourself. I feel that because I have gone through this and come out the other side fairly sane –smile, I can make a difference for someone else who is currently where I used to be.

Following the stages of recovery is not a simple procedure, and can take a lot of time and patience depending on the individual and the severity of trauma. Even if you make it past the last stage, it does not automatically mean that you will ever fully recover from the event. Some traumatic events are more scarring than others, and there are certain things you just can’t forget no matter how much you wish you could. Be that as it may, there are still things you can do to make it easier. Following the steps to recovery, talking to a therapist, finding support in loved ones, understanding the emotions and feelings you’ve dealt with, and gaining self-empowerment creates a new perspective of understanding. Allowing you to move forward whether

The authors of this article found there were many treatments available for women who have been emotional abused by a spousal, but found that there wasn’t any, “clear empirical support for the efficacy” (Reed & Enright, 2006, p. 920). Many researchers have defined the abuse or established ways