07/26/2025
Breaking Free;
A letter to every woman still tangled in the web
Most people donât understand what domestic violence actually is. They think itâs just physical harm, something that leaves bruises. But the real damage is often the invisible kindâthe manipulation, the control, the gaslighting, the isolation, the way it wraps around you like a spiderweb.
In families like mine, abuse is woven into everything. Itâs not just one threadâitâs the whole fabric. It looks like love, feels like guilt, and smells like home. And when you try to pull yourself free, it clings tighter, like it knows itâs losing its grip. You lose people. You lose who you thought you were. Sometimes, you even lose your own voice.
I didnât know I was in it. Not fully. Not until it was too late to undo the decades Iâd spent trying to please people who only knew how to hurt me. Not until I was fifty years old.
Thatâs how long it took me.
To untangle myself.
To stop being the scapegoat.
To stop calling abuse âlove.â
To see that boundaries arenât betrayalâtheyâre survival.
To stop thinking healing meant making it up to the people who hurt me.
To finally say: That wasnât my fault.
That there is a way out.
Because the truth is, I couldnât save myself back then. But maybe, just maybe, I can help someone else find the scissors to cut those invisible cords sooner than I did.
Even if youâre tangled right now, I promise youâthere is freedom.
And itâs never too late.
âď¸âđĽ
