Why Does She Stay?

 

At my group counseling I met a woman, Laura Beth Young. She is the founder of Cheerful Hearts. Her website is www.cheerfulhearts.com, she is a writer, poet, and a Life Coach. She was also struggling with issues of domestic abuse and not being able to remove her 3 boys from the situation. She moved here from another state and was also disabled. She was in a horrific car accident when she was younger and had been bed ridden for over 10 years. She needed medical procedures done that she could not get where she was and that her husband would not allow her to have done. Through her process in healing she wrote this poem and asked me to illustrate it. This was another piece that truly helped even more in my own healing process along with hers. I completely understood and related to the poem and we were on the same page as how to create the artwork to express the power of the words. The poem is

 "Why Does She Stay"

Why does she stay when he treats her so wrong?

So many wonder and desire to know?

She cries out for help, despair in her heart

But has difficulty letting him go

"Why did you allow him to treat you that way?"

A question asked time and again

I do not know, the only answer I could find

Once the relationship finally came to an end

Then I reached out for help, support and relief

My heart torn apart, with confusion and grief

This lead to the road, of uncovering the truth

A complicated unwinding of the present to the past

Revealing the transparency, of a wounded heart

Desiring deeply that her marriage would last

She learns why she stayed, it is a matter of the heart

That was manipulated, twisted and controlled

She loved this man with all that she had

And believed the lies she was told

Feelings of fear, how will she survive?

All rummage through her mind

So she tolerates the treatment time and again

Not knowing how to leave him behind

Until one day she has had enough!

She finds the courage from within

And with the support of loved ones

Takes flight from that life

Thus her journey of freedom begins!

by Laura Beth Young

When we started the process of creating this piece, she wanted a little girl looking up to show the innocence that has been lost. We both wanted hands breaking through the glass, one that is fighting and still bound by the past and one that is free and releasing the dove symbolizing the freedom and peace that is starting from the healing process. Just as in the first piece that I did, I have the chains being broken in this piece as well. Both of the pieces that I have done that have been so symbolic in my healing process and have also helped others in their healing. I have received updates from my counselor telling me that the artwork has found a new way of reaching out to another one of her clients. This is something that means so much to me. I have helped someone else in their healing and becoming of who they want to be. The piece above with the poem Laura Beth and I donated to Hope Alliance, the domestic violence center here. I know that it has made an impact on others as well. For me this has been such an incredible journey. I have healed so much and walked the path I never thought I would ever get down. I have fallen in love and am with an amazing man that loves me for me and pushes me to be better and not allow myself to let others run over me, a man that has taken on the huge responsibility of raising my son as his own. I never thought I would ever be where I am today. Today I am happy, my son is happy, and we are finally going down the path that I can look back and be proud of and be proud of the steps I have taken and the choices I made to better our lives. For that I will be forever grateful. I look forward to creating more artwork that has such deep meaning and will inspire and encourage other people in this world to be better and heal their hearts. 

Continuing My Journey

At this point in my journey I was making great progress. In January 2010, I reconnected with old friend from high school, Nick. We have known each other for a long time, and what is funny, so many times through out the years we were at the same places at the same time, hanging out with the same mutual friends on occasion, but had never seen each other in any other way but friends. We started dating, not seriously, but hanging out a lot. We talked about everything, shared so much of our pasts with each other and realized how much we had in common and had been through many of the same type of situations in relationships, with our parents, etc. We got along so well and really enjoyed each others company.

I had started a new treatment in counseling called EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) This is a process that takes the negative feelings and thoughts and helps neutralize them. This was, at the beginning, a very hard process to go through. I had a hard time separating feelings from the past with feelings for Nick and ended up putting too many of my feelings that did not belong to him on him. He was amazing throughout this process and really helped me focus on what and where things and feelings should be. He was very easy to talk to and express what I was going through and helped push me when I really needed it. I was falling too fast for him and he was struggling with the idea of a built in family. In May, we decided on a break. At this point I started running, deciding I was going to run a marathon, and was really working on myself. That summer, I took Carson's dad to court and that was one of the hardest things I have ever done, but got most of what I wanted and thought was best for Carson. He was only allowed to get Carson once a month, we switch every other Thanksgiving and Christmas, he gets him every spring break, and then 42 days in the summer. That summer Carson was gone for 2 weeks, the longest he had ever been away from me. This was the worst thing for me at the time. I really had some set backs and really struggled, but made it through it with the help of my co-workers and family. Both Nick and I dated other people during the break and in November he reached out to me again. I really was not sure about this and at the same time wanted it more then anything. We both had talked about how we compared each other to the ones we had dated and just wasn't the other person. At the same time I was still training for a marathon and had reduced counseling down to once a month, not realizing that running was like doing EMDR on myself. I had progressed so much and had really healed and gained so much confidence in myself and who I was as a woman and mother. Things between Nick and I had started to progress and on New Years at midnight he told me he loved me for the first time. 

The Process

I started with where I was at. Broken. I wanted to represent being stuck, being in a place that I could not leave, could not run from, I was chained to this place. I drew my hands with the chains wrapped around them and the lock with no place to put a key. I included many scriptures and words about abuse, bound, chained, etc. I think words add so much to this piece and I did it in a jagged font to add more power to the words. When I typed up the words some of them came out with uppercase on the first letter on accident, but this was a happy accident. On the middle piece I placed all the words with an upper case letter which was perfect to my recovery process. The middle section has a bridge and for me this represented me crossing over, going from such a dark place, a dark time, a time of brokenness to being healed and loving myself again. The trees are all changing with the leaves falling. Most of this piece is done in pencil, black and white. I added very little color but the color represents the changing of the seasons. In life, I believe we all go through seasons. We change, whether good or bad, we change. This represented the work I was doing to get better for myself and for my son. My little boy was my main focus. I was NEVER going to give up. He is my world and makes me who I am. The leaves changing completely represent that change. I also added the girl reading scripture. Church and my journey with God was a HUGE part in my healing. I read so many books that my counselor provided, to help seek myself, to help think about how I got to where I was and how I was going to get to where I wanted to be. There is a purple bracelet on her wrist, purple represents several things. First, it is my favorite color, it is also the color that represents domestic violence, as well as a symbol of royalty, for me that meant Jesus and his presence in my life. From the middle piece, I dreamed of where I wanted to be. For me that meant PEACE, happiness, being content and happy with me, who I am, as a mom, a woman, a teacher, who I am comfortable with in my own skin. WOW! How in the world would I ever get there??? At that time it seemed impossible. So to portray where I wanted to be no matter how long it took to get there, I drew the dove. A symbol of peace, comfort, joy, happiness. I included more scripture about those things that I wanted and more words in a soft blue. I drew the hands around the baby feet in the shape of a heart, representing my son and I, this is what I wanted. Love, happiness and to be the best mother I can possibly be for my son. This piece of artwork was one of the most meaning pieces in my journey I have ever done. I grew so much while working on this piece. I was becoming the woman I knew was inside me and the person I wanted to be.