But she's your mother......but he's your father......that cat has diabetes

The first two sentences sound ridiculous to me. But the third one makes total sense. Makes sense? The absurdity of the things people say so nonchalantly without realizing, is that it is this baseless but ridiculous and dangerous logic, that is the reason for so many of us growing up into confused, love craving (and I don't mean the love you're instantly thinking about), stability starved individuals.

If I could rewind my journey and make changes to my life, it would be to change my perception of people's behaviours and therefore my response to them. The point in my life I would have liked to go back to, would be the first time I was made to feel inadequate by someone, wherein I was told I needed to look a certain way if I wanted to be liked or loved. His precise words were, "any other girl would've killed herself to lose this weight." I would go back in time and the change I would've made right then, would've been to stop the tears, way before I even felt the sting in my eyes and told that person to go and you know what himself.

It's not me who needs a body as per your standards. It's you that needs a good heart. One that can see and like a person for who they are. I can lose that weight anytime I want. Where will you grow a soul from, you shallow prick? I would've told my lovely 21 yr old self 'you're beautiful!' Been a little harsh about it, cut him off and walked away rather than given the man a chance. Quite cut and dry, but apt.

If only someone had held my hand or patted my back and given me the emotional spine I needed to do just that. To straighten my crown back and strut that gorgeous body down the street.

But the sad thing is, some of us aren't innately blessed with that feeling of loving ourselves, nor with parents who help develop that spine in us by loving us in the way that was needed. Yes, we look older when we are 20, but i promise you we are not smart yet. A little guidance goes a long way....and that's precisely why I failed at standing up for myself, because of the lack of it and always allowed the person who took full pleasure in running me down, to come back. This time even worse with the abuse and stronger, because it was the abuse that I was ok with while growing up. We don't even know its abuse till we are somehow somewhere magically touched by someone's unconditional love. That...feels unreal.

Abuse doesn't have to always be physical and violent. Smooth suppression, neglect and sweet criticism is as suffocating and deadly as aggressive intimidation, probably worse. Most of the times this abuse is followed by a justification that its done out love for you.

I faced both, physical & emotional abuse. Worst of all, abuse is reinforced when you're told its for your own good and the abuser isn't wrong for doing that. If you want the abuse to stop, you can't walk away, you instead change to be accepted by the abuser. The subtext here being you're not okay to be loved just the way you are. The result? You live life thinking you're never good enough and become a people pleaser till you forget what your own amazing worth is. What do I do to be better? How much should I keep doing? The answer is, nothing will ever be enough. As long as the reigns of your validation are in an abuser's hands, nothing you do is enough & you are never enough.

Did I cut my abuser off and let him go his way and find someone he deserves? So that I can find someone who can actually love me? No! While I did say I was hurt by his words and actions, I joined a gym to 'get better' and to 'be loved.' Right now I wasn't good enough.

Because how can the abuser be wrong? If the first point of your interaction in this world, which should ideally be the most secure space to get all the love and confidence to survive, is instead a shaky ground combined with unpleasant behaviour or negative responses, its natural to think that this feeling of the ground crumbling under your feet is normal. The insults are normal. The foul words are normal, the angry retorts are normal. Being insulted or being made to feel horrible, the neglect, the shame, now transitioning to physical signs like shallow breaths with the sinking feeling in the belly, the pain....is normal.

The resultant individual? An awkward person, unsure of what genuine affection and companionship feels like and the respect that one naturally deserves hasn't even been tasted yet! What respect? It's a miracle this guy even chose me! So what if he makes me feel like shit everytime I eat or walk or wear clothes? It's not him. It's me. I need to be better (his version of beauty or personality). That's normal. My mom did it! My Dad didn't stop it. Dad did it and mom never stopped him. "She's your mom!", he said. "He's your father!", she said. Normal! We love you!

This is the 'normalcy' I wasn't going to be okay with as being part of my child's life. Cutting the toxicity out of our lives to protect his self esteem and sense of security was my gift to my son rather than the clichéd 'giving birth' that most women refer to as motherhood, to glorify something natural that even dogs do on the street and not a supernatural act as people like to believe. The last thing I want to hear anyone tell my child or me is that it is okay to face abuse or neglect because, 'he's the father', or 'I'm your mother.'

Ofcourse its totally okay and upto a child to decide whether or not he or she wants to interact with a toxic or abusive parent, as part of forgiveness and resolving things between the two, but it is not okay to tell them that the reason for continuing the interaction is just the fact that the abuser is the parent. That indirectly justifies the abuse.

The cat with the diabetes? Well, atleast there's a remedy for that!