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Indybay Feature

Why You Have Nothing To Fear

by The Anna Chronicles, Vol. I (An Indymedia Exclusive)
Abuse serves no useful purpose and can be deeply harmful for it's victims. However, the act of overcoming abuse can be a transformative experience that can render a person fearless and unflappable in the face of threats.
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Why You Have Nothing To Fear: On The Empowering Aspect of Being an Abuse Survivor

If people judge this article by the title alone, they may be apt to dismiss it. After all, what possible good can come from abuse... and why would anyone claim that it is empowering?

First of all, there is nothing good about being abused. If you've been through it, it can be horrifying and keep you in a constant state of fear. Instinctively, you react to nearly every action out of a sense self-preservation. If you are an abuse survivor, you probably flinch whenever someone waves their hand anywhere near your face. If you've responded to your abuse by seeking to strike back, you might lunge toward a person you perceive as attacking you. There are other symptoms of someone who has been abused, but these are the most common.

The compounded effects of abuse are obvious: either you live your life in a constant state of apologizing for the very act of being alive or you respond in anger to others in an effort to fend off their perceived attacks. Both of these ways of living are dysfunctional and self-defeating in the long term, but may actually serve as mechanisms as self-preservation while a person is still in an unsafe environment. This is important to recognize because many people are very ashamed or embarrassed by the course of actions they chose before they started healing. This very embarrassment can actually stop the healing process! While it is important to recognize and apologize for any cross abuse you may have perpetrated while in a toxic environment, it is also helpful to be gentle to yourself and recognize why you acted instinctively in self-preservation. When a person is finally in a safe situation, it is usually then that he or she is able to look at his or her situation more objectively, recognize the abuse that occurred and then start the process of healing. This is ultimately a process of reconciliation -- not necessarily with the abuser(s), but always with oneself (one's "spirit") which the abuser tried to destroy.

People who have survived abuse and are thriving can tell you a lot of different things about living through that experience. One thing is that, although the abuse is awful, the surviving part calls forth the best and strongest part of your spirit. For those who have experienced hard-core abuse, it might mean that you have faced death... and you lived through it. Undoubtedly, this is about the scariest thing you go through in your life, yet it can also be one of the most empowering. To have looked at Death in the face and ended up in the land of the living is probably the most inspiring thing that can happen to a person. After that, what can possibly scare you?

Right now, there are abusive, dysfunctional leaders at the helm of the United States government that are trying to destroy the spirit of each of us. Like every abuser, they seek to scare and control you with their mind games. Like a jealous and abusive boyfriend, they want to let you know that they are keeping tabs on you and that their "friends" -- the tightly controlled corporate press, the brainwashed neoconites and their squealing spies -- are watching you, too. Whenever you come out in public, they try to humiliate you and misrepresent you to other people, calling you "disloyal" and accusing you of being with other people.

By now you've caught on to your abusers and know that what they claim is false; you've refused to surrender your spirit. However, you are scared. You've seen how they have sorely hurt those in their path and in the past. You know how vengeful they can be. You feel like you could never face their wrath, yet you you are losing more and more of your self-respect by the day.

Besides possible positive outcomes, there are four negative possibilities before you: a slow, painful death marked by a self-imposed imprisonment and the inevitable self-loathing that accompanies acts of compromise of one's conscience. Two, you resist and experience some abuse. Three, you resist and face possible nonvoluntary imprisonment. Fourth, there is death, the ultimate liberation.

While only each individual can determine what each of these fates means to him or her, here is what they mean to me, a survivor of abuse. I do not want to be self-imprisoned again. I cannot think of a worse fate -- I would rather live free or die.

Second, if I resist and I am abused again, I will survive it. All abuse is temporary. Even if abuse leads to death, it is eventually ended. I've experienced acid burns and broken bones --- and I've lived to tell about it and laugh in the face of my oppressors.

Third, I am involuntarily imprisoned. Sounds like a vacation... I've always wanted to write a book and would love it if Uncle Sam would pay for my time off to finally do that.

Lastly, I die. I think this is the big one that tends to discourage a lot of people. It is understandable because it is the most <ahem!> permanent option, and yet, haven't we all longed to be able to finally sleep in for a change? I do not mean to make light of the issue of death because it is really scary for most people, but truly exploring it can be an incredibly beautiful, grounding experience. For me, it helped me to reconcile some long standing issues I had with the loving and just Almighty that I believe in. My only regret is that I did not have this experience earlier in my life.

When you are faced with choices in your future and feel that fear is causing you to compromise your convictions, I hope you'll remember this article and know that you are not alone.

Live free or die.
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