Trigger Warning: I read the lawsuit. Casandra Ventura vs. Sean Combs. I saw the trigger warning and proceeded. I guess I thought it would be like any other horrible information I digest. I knew I wouldn’t like it, but I was intensively triggered. I too am a domestic violence survivor. I’ve been healing for years and even laugh at the craziness of my testimony but I cried for Cassie; I cried for every person who has not been allowed to leave. My tears weren’t instant, I didn’t even realize my mood changed. After reading it I started thinking about Love and how often it’s mislabeled or misunderstood as bad because we share it with people who do bad things and how that is the opposite of what love can do. The details in the lawsuit reminded me how important our testimonies are to others healing and the raw truth doesn’t have to keep us sad; it can propel us.

I also thought about how I may never fully recover from the nonphysical scars, how changed I am, how present my PTSD is, and how dope it’s gonna be to find someone who loves me despite that. That is hope my friends, we all desperately need hope. What domestic violence victims experience is not love it is the emotional, financial, and physical abuse of people. Love is pure and hopeful, violence is not.

For 7 years I was psychologically beaten up, emotionally dragged, and towards the end physically hit on multiple occasions and once strangled to the point where I blacked out at the hands of someone I loved and poured into so much I didn’t have an ounce left to give myself.

It. Was. Exhausting.

He wouldn’t let me leave. He’d called me bitches, hoes, sluts, liar, and accused me of ridiculousness. He’d sit on my porch waiting for me to get home, stalked, and followed me when I’d leave. He’d called my friends, he’d called my job, waited at my car until I got off of work, and popped up at other places I frequented. He also showered me with I love yous and treated me well. That’s the trick, it becomes easier to not fight and take the abuse because leaving angers him, and it often angers your friends and family when he bothers them or you go back because they stop seeing the point in listening so you become the abused peacemaker. It’s depressing and you decide to play happy because it allows you to feel some control in the chaos.

Now imagine the opposite of that. Being in something so safe they wouldn’t dare raise their voice at you. Something so beautifully put together it heals instead of hurts, how safe sex will be, how nurtured your dreams will be. Imagine a partner that chooses words that water you and allow you the space to be free. Close your eyes and visualize what that feels like, that’s love, say hello and welcome it in. If you close yourself off to love the devil wins. This is why I believe in fairy tales, this is why I talk about love freely because I know the devil tried to take it away for a reason. I know how powerful my love is and it excites me that I’ve grown so much I now know how to share it. Sometimes I think I’m too eager and too safe with it, that I talk about love too much but y’all the only other option is to let the trauma win and I can’t. We can’t.

Fight through the overthinking by staying focused on God. Pray, pray, and pray some more. Read your Bible and fight giving up by remembering He is faithful. Daydream about pouring into your unborn babies, pray that your future spouse is healing too and that they allow all that love you’ve given to people who couldn’t handle it to ooze into their cracks. Pray you allow the same. Fight to stay in the light so it becomes your default. Use your time to pour into people currently suffering abuse too. We need their love on this side therefore they need our help to see the light at the end of the tunnel. They need our help to remind them of who they are and what love feels like. Don’t avoid looking at them, greet their issue head-on with compassion and patience. Keep introducing them to a new story, keep yourself inside of a new story, welcome and accept the new.✨ #SincerelyJamara