Walking in someone else's shoes

Walking in someone else's shoes

Everybody in this world has their own Journey that they walk. Everybody can insert their sob story here, like I always say. We all have been through our own times and troubles.

 I can remember my aunt saying if everybody was sitting at a table and you all put your problems out, you'd be quick to take your problems back. No one knows your story, no one knows the pain, sorrow, or the reason why you are making the decisions that you do unless they walk in your shoes. 

One of my favorite quotes of all time is from Maya Angelou, she says, "When you know better you do better"

That's true in life, the decisions that you made at 21 wouldn't be the same decisions you made at 51 because you've had more life experience in those years. I write about what happened in my life so that other people may not feel alone like I did. When I was going through my toughest times I felt like I was all alone, like no one knew what I was going through and no one could understand. It is a very isolated feeling, to think your all alone and your scared and don't know what to do and you can't talk to anyone because they would never understand. 

So when I started to write this blog I said to myself, there must be other people out there that were going through what I went through and maybe, just maybe if somebody reads my story it would give them hope to keep going, to find their strength and hopefully leave their situation as well. I'm not saying that my story is the worst story or what I went through was the worst things imaginable because I know that I'm blessed with so much in my life and I know it could have been so much worse and I understand that fully. 

But that doesn't mean when I hear people stories that are worse than mine, that I can judge them on the choices they made because I have not walked in their shoes, I was not there with them, I have no idea of their mindset, you don't know the circumstances, you don't know what was going on at that moment in their head so I can't judge somebody and neither can anyone else. 

Sometimes people do things for all kinds of reasons, they're scared, they're beatdown, they have no self esteem, they got it in their heads that they're never going to make it. Sometimes it's a better life than what they had so they stay with it, maybe they are afraid for their lives, there are all kinds of reasons why people do what they do but it's not for me to judge somebody for the choices they made.

 People always say to women that were in domestic violence situations, why didn't you leave you? You should  have stood up to him, why didn't you take your kids and go? Why didn't you put your kids first?

All of these accusations that get hurled at us, making us feel that much worse. Do you not think that we thought about these things? Do you not think we prayed about getting out of the situation? 

But you cannot judge a woman and say that, unless you walk in her shoes and you knew how scared she was. You cannot judge until you knew what life really was like for her and how she got beat down everyday, until she no longer liked herself or believed in herself.

One of my favorite Ted talks is by Leslie Morgan Steiner, she tells people of her story and in it she says:

"I don't look like a typical domestic violence survivor. I have a B.A. in English from Harvard College, an MBA in marketing from Wharton Business School. I've spent most of my career working for Fortune 500 companies including Johnson & Johnson, Leo Burnett and The Washington Post. I've been married for almost 20 years to my second husband and we have three kids together. My dog is a black lab, and I drive a Honda Odyssey minivan. 

So my first message for you is that domestic violence happens to everyone -- all races, all religions, all income and education levels. It's everywhere. And my second message is that everyone thinks domestic violence happens to women, that it's a women's issue. Not exactly. Over 85 percent of abusers are men, and domestic abuse happens only in intimate, interdependent, long-term relationships, in other words, in families, the last place we would want or expect to find violence, which is one reason domestic abuse is so confusing" 

A person cannot think that because I was educated, that I came from a good family, that I was independent and self sufficient that it couldn't happen to me, that I was "strong" enough to leave even though I knew the situation was wrong.

No one including myself would have thought I could become a victim. Hell, I was a tough ass New Yorker, quick to tell anyone to fuck off but in fact I was a very typical victim because of my age. I was 24 and in the United States, women ages 16 to 24 are three times as likely to be domestic violence victims as women of other ages, and over 500 women and girls this age are killed every year by abusive partners, boyfriends, and husbands in the United States. 

I was also a very typical victim because I knew nothing about domestic violence, its warning signs or its patterns. I didn't come from an abusive family, I never had abusive boyfriends so I had no clue of the signs.

Many domestic violence victims are educated, and are independent women who fall prey to their abusers. But again it doesn't matter what we think, it doesn't help to judge that person when you have no idea what their life was like. It is my job to be honest about my story, to write and speak about it to help others.

I will not judge you on your life decisions because trust me we have all made some fucked up decisions in our lives so don't judge me on mine because you have not walked in my shoes.

"Be the change you want to see"

 

"And just when the caterpillar thought his life over...he turned into a beautiful butterfly"

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