1. I truly believe, life is what you make it. I have seen my purpose and meaning of life evolve over
the past five years for several reasons. The main reason being, I have spent so much time doing
what other people wanted me to do. I am a survivor of an extremely abusive relationship. It has
been four years, but the relationship lasted five years. I am not sure how, or what I was looking
for when I embarked upon this devastating journey. I found myself scared, alone, and confused. I
could not get out of this relationship to save my life. I found myself going back time after time,
believing it would somehow get better. The truth is, it is a cycle that includes blame, abuse, and
forgiveness in hopes that things will change for the better. It affected everything, my son, my
job, my family, but most of all my personality and self-esteem. It took a near death encounter, at
the hands of abuse for me to realize that I deserved a better life. From that day April 9, 2010 I
would live my life differently. I owed it to myself and my son who came from this union. I
sought out ways to better myself and my child. I introduced an environment for my son that
promoted violence and acceptance the theory that it is okay for men to put their hands on a
women. Although I wasn’t the abuser, by allowing it to happen I showed my son that it was
acceptable behavior. That was something that I had to make right.
I have learned that life experiences influence personality according to Bandura's social learning
theory. Bandura believed that learning does not always require reinforcement but observation
and imitation is the greatest way in which one learns. When we experience different
situations, we as humans start to form an opinion about ourselves based on our environment and
our reactions to our environment. Environment plays a vital role in personality construct in that
context. Once our personality construct is formed, we tend not to stray from it. I could not allow
my son to become an abuser and have no respect for women. That is a learned behavior, and the
younger a child is introduced to it the harder it is to create new patterns. I relied on therapy to
reconstruct my thinking and way of living. My family whom I pushed away and had little contact
with, became my greatest supporter. I resumed by faith in God and pursued the path in which he
would be proud of me. I found myself laughing, and feeling valuable. See for so long I had no
control over my life. I was living in hell on earth. I was not raised around violence. My mother
and father and still together and have been for over 40 years. My father is a Pastor and I always
have had ties to the church and my faith in God. Although I felt alone in the mist of all I believe
it was God that allowed me to still be alive. I can laugh, I can socialize with my family, but more
importantly I can love, and be loved.
If I could do it all over again, I would have never went out on a date with my ex. I regret the day
I met him. I would have continued to blow him off when he tried to pursue me. I love my son
and without my ex I would not have him. But I cannot help but feel as a mother I am supposed
to protect my son, I cannot protect him if I cannot protect myself. I feel that he was exposed to a
level of violence that adult shouldn’t even encounter. I hate that I did not have the courage to
walk away sooner. But I applaud myself for making it out. I can accomplish anything after
surviving such horror. I love the person I have become, and look forward to getting to know
myself better.