The Healing Journey

The First Step is the One that Counts.

I have been umming and ahhing over this blog situation for months. I know I want to share my life experiences and my healing journey to help you and I know I want a blog and website, but I have no idea where to start and how to begin. I have been taking a course to build a website and so far it has been very productive for me. It gives me the missing links that I need and provides the detail where I previously had none.

But today I bite the bullet…I understand that I just gotta start and keep it moving from there. I suppose the catalyst is my day life. I am currently managing a portfolio of construction projects worth 75million in total. The smallest contract being 50k and the largest 22m. It is not easy and some how I keep my head above water without feeling like I am about to drown.

Before the Healing Journey Began

It wasn’t always this way. Up until last year, July 2020, I felt like I had it all together and could manage it all. That’s when I realised I couldn’t and didn’t want to. I was tired of managing it all. I was in a one-sided marriage. One side was pushing and the other side was pulling and this was the case for years. Until I felt the nail in my arse.

One night before falling asleep, I became petrified at being 50 and still in the same situation. I was scared shitless that I would be 50 and growing old with someone who rarely left the country to holiday with me and the children, (One holiday with us in the 11 years of marriage. The girls and I had been on 5 holidays without him), hardly ate the food that I cooked (Opting for Chinese, Indian, Kebab and Pizza. A Recurring theme), Ignored me when he didn’t want to communicate and screamed and bellowed at me and called me names when he did communicate.

I spoke to my dads about it and one said ‘get used to it or leave’ and in July 2020 I realised this was my life and it would be my life forever, and… I didn’t want to get used to it, so I made plans to leave.

Trauma Bond

For 13 years of marriage the love I had for my husband deteriorated and became a trauma bond. The chipping away at my character with his shouting, devils tongue, rude behaviour, ignoring me when he didn’t want to hear it, asking me where I’m going dressed like that, telling me my hair doesn’t look good, telling me no-one would want me after having 2 girls and his self-hating-self very nearly destroyed my character but she was still there underneath. Fighting for air, fighting to be free, fighting to fly. She made it out and it was the hardest, most hardest thing I have done in my life.

I have had 2 caesarean sections and I would rather have another 2 sections than go through the pain I experienced when I left him. He was and continues to be a menace and a tyrant at the time of writing this. Although he has calmed down somewhat in 12 months which has allowed me the head space to make baby steps in my healing journey.

Hindsight

I have managed it very well. I am extremely balanced using the tools I learned growing up and still in tune with God. I knew my marriage wasn’t going to last soon after our first was born. She was 8 months old when he pushed me in the kitchen against the worktop, cussed me off and left the housing saying ‘watch what happens to you when I come back’. From there I kinda knew. I think I manifested the split.

I knew I wanted better for myself but I also knew that I was married and maybe it wasn’t that bad. Maybe this is what happens in married life. Maybe I was exaggerating the feelings I had and I could manage it. From that point forward it was a lot of walking on eggshells, he bought me a lot of gifts to keep me on side and he gave me money every now again to buy shoes. He ruined every single birthday I had between the age of 24 and 29 and by the time I was 30, I l learned not to involve him in my birthday plans that he somehow managed to make about him.

Spirituality

Throughout the entire time I still prayed to my God. I still kept my spiritual being intact and I still maintained contact with my family and friends. One thing I was not willing to let go. When he was disrespectful of my friendships and family I told him not to speak about people love in that way and he never did. This was probably the only real boundary I set verbally that was acknowledged. He disregarded everything else. 19 years later I realised that he didn’t love himself.

Awful Behaviour

If he knew how to love himself he would have been a better person. He was a very charming man. He could talk for England. He was helpful, when he wanted to be. Other times he was the meanest person ever.

By the time I had our second child, he would watch me go shopping and watch me bring all the bags from the car to the house while sitting on the sofa watching TV. He worked for a maximum of 3 months since our last child was born and when he had no money he was a bear with a sore head and said that the children and I are the reason he is always broke. Meanwhile I was working.

I never had conversations on the phone in front of him and I grew fearful of him. When he saw red in 2018 I tried to run but something bought me back. It was the children. Breaking up what the children saw as a family unit let him back in. That and the shiny car he bought me.

Finally,

I said all of this to say…Know your worth, believe in yourself, love yourself start your healing journey and the rest will fall into place…These stories are a place where I prove to you that there is life beyond separation and divorce…it’s a place where I prove to you that you have all that you need and it’s a place where I prove to you that….you are not alone…you got this and I love you.

Onika Sabrina