My life has changed so much since last summer. I am
free to be a mother to my girls. I am free to drive. I am free
o say I
have a family.
My family is
my own. I
have my
daughters, my mom, my sister, and my aunt. I am rebuilding
relationships with my
extended family and
friends. I have
met so many new
people. It’s amazing
to know so many
people and to count some of them as my close friends. For
so long I was
confined to knowing just a few people. When I
was in captivity, there were times that I longed to talk to the
girl at the cash register if only about the weather, but Nancy
was always there with me, and I know it would have gotten
back to Phillip.
And then the
lecture would ensue.
I ’ve
earned that verbal
abuse can be
just as damaging
as
physical abuse and take longer to heal from. But I ’m doing
hat as well. I ’m healing from the physical and verbal abuse
I
endured for so long.
I t has not
been an easy
road. I got
ucky, though, by being placed with a psychologist who has
a unique approach to traditional therapy, and I believe she
s a big part of why I
am making as much progress as I
am.
With her help
I am learning
to speak up
for myself—
something that if I did
before was always
met with
opposition and Phillip telling me why I was wrong. I t’s hard
to stand up for yourself when all the other person does is
tell
you how wrong you
are and give
you reasons why he is
right. I ’m now
able to make decisions
for myself and my
girls, and although
they have not
always been the
right
choices, they were
still mine to make and that
feels good
despite the bad
decision. One example of this is going
to
I wanted to go but was warned about the dangers of the
paparazzi and snapping
some pictures. I
am headstrong
and I wanted my girls
to be able to see the Perseid meteor
shower in the darkness of a campsite, so I chose to
take
them. We had a fabulous time camping out under the stars.
We laid our blankets
and sleeping bags and watched as
the flashes of light darted across the sky. We also played
in
the lake and ate pie for dinner and hamburgers for dessert!
We had a great time together and didn’t realize our privacy
was being violated.
Upon returning home and learning of
the pictures that
were taken that
weekend, I was
immediately saddened and embarrassed. I also felt horribly
that I had
inadvertently put my girls in the public eye again.
What was supposed to be a fun trip before school started
turned into a nightmare. Thank goodness for Nancy Seltzer,
my public relations manager. She was able to get the girls’
faces blurred in
the tabloid pictures,
saving them from
unwanted attention.
All I
want is for my
girls to have
the
privacy and freedom
they deserve in the days ahead and,
thanks to NS, we can have that awhile longer.
Another emotion I
felt during that
ordeal was doubt
in
myself. I felt
I could no
longer be trusted
to make sound
decisions. I felt
that because I had made the decision and
it
turned out to be the wrong choice, then all my future
choices
would be no
good, too. I t
took a few
sessions with my
therapist to get me
to see that
it was okay to make
the
decision I did. That
it was better that I went
despite some
advice that it could be dangerous because it was a public
place, because
if I had not gone and heeded the advice
I
was given, I would
never have truly known if it was safe or
not to go and would
have resented the advice. So it was
better to have made
the decision I
did and learn
from it.
Also, not all choices are black and white. We all have the
right to make up our
own minds about stuff, but it’s better
when you have all the facts and go in to make an informed
decision.
Looking back, I
should have researched where
it was before I made
the decision to go.
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