Apparently today, the first official day of spring, is also International Day of Happiness.
It can be difficult to imagine happiness when you are in the throes of domestic abuse, or when you are first recovering from it.
I remember thinking I was happy when I was in an abusive relationship, at least some of the time. That’s the thing with abuse, it’s an emotional rollercoaster of highs and lows. When he’s not existing as the monster Mr Hyde, our Dr Jekyll can be really rather lovely.
That’s how he keeps us with him. Abuse isn’t just the traumatic, sometimes violent events, it’s the in-between parts of the cycle too. It’s the manipulative denial, blame or false apologies that cause you to reconcile, the wonderful honeymoon period where he masquerades as the perfect husband and father, and it’s the tension building time where you walk on eggshells for what seems like an eternity, knowing he’s going to blow up any minute now.
It’s all abuse, it’s all manipulation and it’s all confusing. But that honeymoon time can lead us to thinking that staying is the best chance we have of being happy. When I left I knew I would miss that, and I thought I’d never be happy again.
I didn’t even know what happiness was.
Then when you leave everyone expects you to suddenly be happy. You’re not being abused anymore so you must be happy now- right? It’s difficult for people who have not experienced abuse to recognise the grief we feel when we leave an abusive relationship. They can’t understand why we miss him. We miss the honeymoon period. We miss the “happy times’
But we don’t even know what happiness is.
Because happiness is not manipulation, happiness is honesty and knowing where you stand. It’s not extreme highs and lows, happiness is consistency and stability. It’s not really happiness when you know it’s going to morph into a period where you have to walk on eggshells, where before long the psychological, spiritual and possibly physical violence is going to start all over again. That’s not what happiness looks like.
If you’re at the stage where you’re wondering if you’ll ever be happy again, I’m here to tell you that you can, and you will. Happiness is not found in abusers, in fact, it’s not found in romantic relationships at all. Don’t rely on other people to make you happy.
Happiness is found when you work out who you are and learn to love that person. When you work out why you’re here and start to live for that purpose, it’s found in allowing yourself to love and be loved in all kinds of relationships, and it’s found in being loved by God too. It might feel like a distant dream right now, but it’s not, it’s closer than you think. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other and stopping to smell the flowers every now and then.
