*Content Warning: This piece contains a references to emotional, verbal and domestic violence/intimate partner violence, which may be triggering to some.*
Emotional and verbal abuse has deep wounds. They leave deep emotional scars. They heal, but some take longer than others. Some scars may never go away. I am healing, I have a lot of healing left to do though. The healing comes at some the craziest moments and it will continue to happen as life goes on.
Charles has helped me with this, but he didn’t know it was going to happen on this day. This past spring, we were needing to get some things done around his house. He was under a time crunch. Charles needed to mow and weed eat the grass. Both would be hard to do separately and have them done in time. I told him I could mow. I wouldn’t mind.
He asked, “Are you sure, do you really want to mow?”
“Yes,” I said. “I don’t mind at all.”
I thought to myself, “When was the last time that I mowed a yard?” I mowed once or twice when I was married, but only those couple of times. I wasn’t “allowed” to mow at our house anymore. I mowed when I was in high school all the time. Today I wanted to mow. I welcomed it. It sounded like it would be fun and I would be helping Charles at the same time.
So, I got the mower and I started mowing. As I mowed that day, I experienced many emotions. One was the excitement of “Woohoo I was mowing!” The other was “Wow, I don’t know the last time I really mowed,” then “I hope I don’t mess up” the next, “I hope I don’t run over anything” followed by, “I hope I don’t break something” then came, “Oh gosh what if I break something” after that, “Oh no, what if I do mess up something,” finally the tears started flowing.
What I went through were emotions that had to do with messing up or breaking something. All of those feelings and emotions had to do with my past. In my past relationship, I was always made to feel like I did things wrong daily. When those things were done wrong according to him, I was yelled at, then told I couldn’t do it. I was told I didn’t know how to do it right, then I was made to feel stupid, inferior and beaten down verbally.
As I was mowing, running over sticks, probably not mowing in a straight line and missing spots, Charles walked over to bring me a drink of water and said, “Take a drink baby.” Wow. What is this? I’m not sure how to react to this type of kindness. He continued with, “Are you OK? Do you need a break? Do you want some more water?” I looked at him with tears running down my cheeks, I smiled and said, “Thank you, I’m doing good” then smiled bigger. “Baby, what is wrong?” he asks again. I tell him, “I have had a trigger while I was mowing, but I am ok. It’s good. I will tell you more when we are done”
As I continued to mow the tears started falling again. The emotions overtook me as I realized no one was going to tell me I was doing it wrong. I didn’t need to worry that I was going to break something. I wasn’t going to be yelled at, called an idiot or have any of those comments. That part of my life was over and behind me.
Charles had finished weed eating and walked back over to me to give me a break. I was definitely ok with taking a break and talking to him. He asked me again, “What happened babe?” I answered by explaining how I got afraid that I was going to break the lawnmower. I thought I might accidentally run over something or mow something wrong. It reminded me that I always got yelled at about those things. The flashback of it all scared me and I started crying because I didn’t know mowing was another trigger.
After Charles realized what had happened, he told me, “Baby, if you broke it, we would just go buy another one. It is a lawnmower, it doesn’t matter. If you didn’t mow it straight, it doesn’t matter. Most of the lawn got mowed. Those are things that just don’t matter. I would never get mad or upset with you about things like that.” Again, tears because I knew he was different. I knew he would never do any of those things. I loved hearing how it was just a lawnmower and we could buy another one.
It was the best afternoon of healing. I didn’t realize how deep that wound was or that I even would feel that way. It was a therapy session. It was a healing session and it was a moment that freed me from my past. I will mow again and it’s ok if I break it! We will buy another one!
This is an excerpt from my book, “Watch Me, Choose Me.” It is about my journey through a childhood with low self-esteem, to a 30-year domestic violent relationship, and where I am today. This excerpt is about emotional scars and triggers. They are deep, and the triggers come when we least expect them, but the emotional healing we can take from them is life-changing.
