It has been five years. Five years of marriage. Five years trying to heal from four years of two sexual assaults, one rape, and multiple people trying to take advantage of me. I thought high school was the worst of my past. But my marriage. That is the worst of my past by far. It was a marriage that started off as a way to heal from pain of losing one person who I thought was the love of my life. That’s a story within itself. The abuse. The part that hurts the most isn’t the memories of the choking or punching. Or even the screaming, belittiling. The worst part of it all is the emotional and psychological aspect of it all. It sickens me. I was in a group therapy the other day and we were talking about certain things that bother us today. My friend put it very well laid out. When we ask people for permission for things currently it feels like we have to crawl on our hands and knees to grovel to get it. And we shouldn’t have to do that. That’s how I was made to feel for five years. Thinking that everything was my fault. That if I just changed certain parts of me or certain ways of myself, it would change the outcome. When you are in domestic abuse. You have no sense of self. Tonight I am just sick to my stomach and it gets hard on these nights. I shake and I worry. I wish I could just get over everything. I wish that I could heal quickly. Move on. I went to a job fair today. You’d think that would be easy and simple to just attend. Boy. It was the most excruciating thing. I felt so out of place. I was shaking and nervous entering in – they were denying and accepting people based on how they were dressed. That alone bugged me. I got in, as I knew how to dress for this event. But still. Then – there were metal detectors and high end security and so many people – which crowds tend to overwhelm me lately. I’ve been severely isolated these past five years and I wish I could easily be back to being a people person that doesn’t mind the thrill of a ton of people around. The old me would have loved this and had no problem. The me now – the me now had such a hard time. I had to do all my therapy techniques to not have a panic attack. By the end of this event, I just wanted to take a twelve hour nap honestly. I got outside, back to the person who drove me there to be a support person – and on our way back to the parking garage – this guy approached me and he asked me to describe the job fair in one word and as he was speaking to me – I just wanted to leave because i also felt like balling my eyes out from overwhelming exhaustion – this lady next to him snapped a picture. My friend immidetly asked the lady to please delete the picture and she wouldn’t. I jumped in and explained that this is a huge privacy concern. And the lady refused to delete it – saying “i don’t know how to” pardon my french but thats bullshit. Every photographer or even dim witted person knows how to delete a photo. Goodness gracious. Anyway – this lady literally it took her 15 minutes to finally delete it. And by the end she had the nerve to freaking say “there you go princess”. Now the thing that bugs me most is her calling me princess and being so rude about the whole ordeal. I know I should just shrug this off. But do you have no common decency? This is what makes me so weary of the world sometimes. People like her. The judgement that she had to let off. If she only knew that my soon to be ex husband threw knives at me. He threatened my life on a weekly basis. I’ve had to flee my house with no shoes, practically naked with three kids in my hands clinging because we could have been killed. I had to leave my whole life behind – go into hiding in a sense, have a mandatory protective order. Dealing with three different cases due to this whole thing in three different states. My life. That picture. It’s not something that is just a picture or so fun to put out there. When you snap a picture of a person – that is violating their privacy. Out of respect – when a person’s privacy is disregarded – especially when they have voice that says so – listen and accept this one time. I’m not a freaking celebrity. I’m nobody essentially. Is my face really that important for you to not delete one photo out of billions? For goodness sake. It just blows my mind. She had no idea of the ramifications of that. She has no idea what I am going through. Nor should i have to explain my background to her – which can be a humiliating process – just to get a photo deleted. Then she proceeded to say “Ive worked in shelters before – i know how it goes” OH REALLY?! Really. Then why wouldn’t you ask permission to snap a photo? Or better yet, why would you go through 15 minutes of pure hell stubbornness towards a person who is scared to death of the photo getting out on any public platform? That photo could have jeopardized my kids safety or my safety and she had no regard for that. Ugh. I’m exhausted from having to feel this, but it’s part of my life moving forward. Sorry for the long rant – but I needed a place to vent and share. I’m sick of isolation and nighttime sucks. And one of my therapist recommended this kind of thing. All the crisis chat lines are available but honestly they give you this robotic tone and I just cant handle the robotic tone at the moment.