The Silent Poison

If you were to go back to my high school and ask the teachers what kind of student I was, most would tell you I was a quiet, shy yet advanced student. Some might even tell you I was to graduate at the age of 15, though few in the high school knew that.

If you asked them why I was so quiet, they wouldn't have an answer for you, unless they still had the work I did in English class. Behind the stanzas and lyrical paragraphs, the truth was revealed, to those who knew how to read metaphors, similes, and paradoxes. 

If you asked them what I was passionate about, their faces would light up. They would go on this  huge tirade of words, praising me for my passions: writing, attempting to form groups against bullying, attempting to form some kind of students counseling other students organization, attempting to form a way to work in the town. They would say how my passion was helping people and writing. 

See, I was this quiet girl in school. I've always been quiet, on the sidelines looking in. I remember one English teacher teasing me, calling me a stray animal who had lost its trust in humans. I wanted to run to them and be accepted yet I was fearful so I stayed on the outside and just looked in.

She couldn't have been more right.

When I was in school and even up to now I have always been able to look at someone and be able to read them. The eyes say a lot. Posture and patterns only confirm what the eyes betray, hence my always painting my eyes black in school and not making eye contact up til today. 

What I saw in the eyes of those kids and what I see in the eyes of people today breaks my heart.

There is a silent poison in people that no one can see or they choose not to see... abuse...

When people say the word abuse, they think of just physical abuse. They picture a husband beating their wife, a boyfriend controlling his girlfriend with the threat of beating her. If your boyfriend or father hits you in the midst of a fight, do you just take it and tell yourself that he didn't mean it? Or do you stop and think if he did it in the midst of anger, it can happen again?

Few people think of sexual abuse, whether it is molestation, forcing a girlfriend/wife to give a boyfriend/husband something they do not wish to.

How many people think of emotional, verbal or mental abuse? 

If your parents, friends or significant other call you fat, worthless, dumb, a disappointment, do you think it is abuse? If it is constant, if it causes you to hurt and you start to view yourself as that, it is abuse. Some people call it bullying... and that is a form of abuse. This is verbal abuse.

If those same people were to toy with your emotions, lift you up with words of praise and then take it back and say something negative, that is emotional abuse. Emotional abuse can be tied to verbal abuse as well. Both of these can lead to mental abuse.

Mental abuse can literally change the way an individual views them-self and the world and people around them. It can leave one in a state of depression and can lead to many mental disorders and anxiety. 

This is the silent poison...

All of the above are things that I have encountered first hand and have experienced for over a decade. Less then 10 people knew thing before I typed this blog. Less than 5 actually know the details and how bad it was/is. 

This is what I am passionate about. Abuse is everywhere! It is in the workplace, in families, in schools, in churches. 

When I went to South Dakota, it re-broke my heart. I had night-terrors reliving my past and some of the abuses I went through. That mission trip re-solidified in my mind that there needs to be a way to stop this or provide some form of counseling or safe-house for children and young adults to go to and escape. 

What am I passionate about?, you ask the teachers.

All I want to do is a make a difference.