Dawn Alyse - Ep. 27.5 - Don’t stay because of the kids.

Divorce: The First Six Months with Peter Maestrey

In this episode we talk about some seriously unnerving things. Dawn creates what it was like to live with an abusive person. Not physically, how it started, but mentally. She talks about how it began with him stalking her, and her believing that he was just showing interest in her. She talks about what she did when learned she was pregnant, how she left the state for a month, and how he was at her front porch when she returned, uninvited.

One of the things I want you to be mindful of inside this episode, is that you will not hear her blame anyone other than herself when it comes down to the time lost and the choices made. You will hear how she questions why she stayed and what had her be with someone whom she knew was not good for her since day one.
Listen to how easy it is for her to live someone else's idea of what our happiness is. How the people around her, even her very own kids, were trained to treat her as if she was the one that is crazy.

Dawn is not crazy, nor is she emotional, but she was led to believe that she was. She was led to believe that it was her throughout the marriage that needed more. If this sounds familiar, then tune in to this episode. Dawn is a woman who is turning this abuse around and facing it head on. She is sharing her tools, as well as her insights with you, the audience, in hopes that you might not have to endure 22 years of something that under no circumstance is worth it. Not for the kids, not for your health, not for anything.

This episode is packed with useful material for someone dealing in an abusive relationship, or recovering from one. I am grateful that this story is being shared, that this man is being exposed, and that Dawn gets to voice the trauma that she has endured so that others can learn from it.

It takes a lot of courage to tell your very own story. It takes trust, vulnerability, and moving forward past your own mind to attain the freedom we seek, and deserve. The beauty of Dawn’s story, and so many like it, is that when it is told. The oppressors, the manipulators, and the gas lighters alike get diluted. They get a spotlight on them, as the victims rise up and reclaim their own stories.
When you find a way to amplify your story, it allows others to hear it, and to answer the call of support. When we echo stories like Dawn’s, her ex has to face greater numbers, as opposed to the one woman he has concentrated on for so long. It changes the rules of the game, and it changes the way Dawn and women like her survive and thrive.