7 times

The imprint of 7. What is it about this number that makes it so magical? So horrific and so surreal.

They say it takes a woman an average of 7 times to leave a domestic abuse relationship. I would say that to be true from lived experience.

I remember 7 being the unlucky amount of holes I pierced in my own flesh once in a day and it being the final broken blood vessel that made me snap into the reality of my drug addiction.

7 times is the number they say you have to advertise an offering before someone buys and becomes a client.

7 TIMES.

I’ve always had a deep appreciation for this number. Born in the seventh month. 17/7/87 to be exact.

Is that how many times it takes us to see a sign and to grasp the reality of what is truly happening? The truth and deeper underlying current of life.

Today I feel called to share these times with you all.

The first time - I was dating a young man (lets call him Dane) at the tender age of 16. So wordly I thought I was, so wise, so knowledgeable and open hearted for my 1st “official” boyfriend. He was 2 yrs older than me and the first boy I fell deeply in love with. Heart wide open and eyes wide shut to the signs of a spiral of abuse that pretty much stripped me bare. I don’t remember the exact moment he raised his hands to me, but I do remember the emotional and psychological abuse started very early on. He was very jealous, which I thought was very sweet originally. It may have started with something as simply as calling me a slut, teasing me about my weight, saying how disgusting I was and then leaving me to go to the pub.

The second time - He apologised. He said he was sorry and that I made him angry. I made him act crazy and its just because he loved me so much. He would suck up to me in all the nice ways, and I would truly believe him and that he was genuine. The second time was worse. I was more lonely and a lot more ostracized from my family, through Danes manipulation and twisting on all the things. I pushed myself away from my friends and my family because they didn’t love me like he did. It didn’t take long for the physical to come. Maybe a push, maybe punching a hole in the wall beside my head, perhaps it was braking a pool stick at the pub, whatever it was, I was able to walk away again and think I would never come back to that scumbag. But my confidence was small and my world and network was even smaller at this point. It was always his friends, his rules, his family, his way and it happened so organically almost at the blink of my eyes. Like I woke up one day and no one was around to help me.

The third time - The times were becoming more tumultuous and definitely more blurry. A couple years of being broken down to feel like you are a piece of shit will do that to you. I was living in perpetual fight and flight mode. Fighting with him, running away, calling my Mum with my tail behind my legs and oh the SHAME! I was so filled with shame and guilt each time. I felt empty, numb, like nothing, and so I drank and did drugs to forget what was waiting for me at home. He cheated, he lied, he told me daily how horrendous I was and I was isolated and felt like I deserved this. I was a bad person and nobody would ever love me and I died a little more. The times I would get taken home by the cops and told to stay away from this man, as he was a well known horrible person. I would agree and I would believe myself, that it was the last time. The hooks were already in and the wounds he was activating inside were big ones. Unworthy, unloveable, disgusting, a bad person, I deserved it, I was crazy, I made him do these things, I made him hurt me, it was my fault, I made him angry, I made him abuse me and mostly it was because I was this awful person. When he closed his fists, I would fight back. When he pushed me down, I would get back up. When he would destroy the house or my belongings, I would laugh at him and when I left him for good, I don’t know why I would go back again. I believed him, I wanted to believe him.

The forth time - Why? I am not sure on why I went back. Time and time again, after years of moving on. Living my life, he would always enter it again in some form or another. Even when I grew up, even when I knew better, even when I was living my life so far away from him, it seemed. Maybe I wanted to save him. Maybe I wanted to fulfill my prophecy of being a shit person and too horrible to love. Maybe I was punishing myself and sitting in my victim. Maybe I was asking for it and it was a “lesson”. Or perhaps it was my lack of family stability and father, or even seeing what love was. The perpetual abuse and chaos reminding me of home. All I know is the physical got worse, more public, more humiliating, more showy for others to see. He once spit on me and punched me in the face as I came downstairs and walked outside from a nightclub I was working at to go for a cigarette on a break. In front of all my work colleagues, bouncers, and patrons. Shame was his game. He loved it. He got off on it. He thought he was really powerful and really cool and he made sure that I looked like the crazy one that provoked him. His friends couldn’t look at me without him going off at both them and me, starting all out brawls in public places and spaces I had to work.

The fifth time - I resisted going back for a long time, but he knew when I was broke and down. Like a predator he would stalk me. Show up at my my work and do awful things. One nightshift at a servo he came in and ripped apart the entire males toilet, causing all this damage and I was so scared to do anything and move from the counter. If he seen me out with a male friend, he would fight them and then fight me. I felt so embarrassed and was constantly fearing seeing him, but also really wanted to in some sick and twisted universe. He imprinted on me, deeply. I was sad. I was lonely and I was incredibly fantastic at feeding my wounds and pain with more pain and wounding…..am I right? One time he followed me a whole block from a pub where we were playing a game of pool because he got aggressive and I just couldn’t partake in the games and manipulation anymore. When I tried to call my mum from a payphone, he smashed the glass in on me. The deeper I went, the more I would hide though. I would hide where I was and keep it a secret I was with him, engulfed in the guilt of running back to what I knew was completely destroying my soul.

The sixth time - The years went pass and this vicious cycle would play out more times than I can count. Sometimes big, sometimes small. My friend would drop me off at his after a big night on the town and he would rip my clothes and basically assault me. I was numb. I couldn’t really feel anything more. It was good for a little and then it went sour. One of the last times I remember being 23 and it was like it was one of the most surreal experiences of my life. I remember having an out of body experience and almost like I could see the thread of the previous 5 times (lets be real, probably 20x at this point)…almost like the entire time before that moment I was asleep. It was like I was here, but also not. I have come to know it as a timeline shift or jump really. I was at his house, phone turned off, maybe for a week? I was of course on drugs and alcohol and I could see myself there doing the things and like my time was coming to a close with him. I would feel the need to fill a hole basically, something bad would happen in my life and I would turn to him to fill a hole, but I would be emptier and he would syphon off me and my helplessness. He actually was evil. No doubt in my mind about this human being possessed by demons to be real. By this time I knew.

The seventh time - I found by the “seventh” time there is nothing dramatic about it. It is almost like it is known, but you just needed to check, like a non event. This isn’t for me anymore…check! I was 25. I had boyfriends in between, none that were fabulous mind you, although at the time I believed them to be a huge improvement from physical abuse, the emotional and mental abuse would continue for another 2 boyfriends unfortunately. This final time I was actually not present, or perhaps I was more present than I had ever been in my entire time with Dane. I could SEE. Really see through the words and the 3D reality I had sunk into. An awakening almost and after nearly a decade of this decay, I felt like I could breathe and release myself from the situation.

It was like the imprint on me from this traumatic cycle in my life, had finally closed, been stripped and removed ever so delicately from my body. The trauma I faced from this first boyfriend plays a heavy part on many defense mechanisms I built for many years, for my protection and the fuckery still plays tricks on my psyche from time to time. The unworthiness, the needing to protect myself, the shame and guilt I carried for ALLOWING myself to be treated in such a way, is beyond a heartbreak. It is a complete violation to me as a Woman, as a human being and as a beautiful soul with a golden heart of pure honey.

I have needed to heal myself and these parts of myself, that suffered this violence and abuse, 7 x more than expected…..

And still, as I sit here and write, more than 7 years later, I weep.

I feel such sadness for a life I had long forgotten.

I am filled with so much admiration for the Woman I am, because I know, not every Woman and person makes it all the way to their 7th time.

And for that, I am forever grateful.