You're all changing it @Former-Member. Every person who stands up and says "no !" to domestic violence is changing it, but those changes are happening by degrees.
It's a real struggle, but you are doing it. You are bringing your children into a new place, and an understanding that they can make a difference, even if it is only in tiny increments. Even if at times all you can do is hold the ground, until a new moment arrives when you can inch forward again, the movement is still forward.
And the biggest statement Rosie Batty is making, apart from the fact that DV is unacceptable and the landscape has to change, is that you are not alone. There is power in numbers, and you stand amongst those numbers. That's bravery !!! Your kids will know that, even if it is not clear to them right now. They will know how brave you were, and you made that stand.
Try to stay in the moment and postpone the worries, because staying in worry mode is robbing you of energy to be with your kids in the here and now. Try to give yourself a period of time in the day when you can unpack the worries and concerns and have a think about them, a stress about them, a vent about them, but then put them away from your family time with your children, your mealtimes, your bedtimes with them. Otherwise the DV is reaching into your new life by keeping you away from your children even when you are with them.
I haven't suffered DV. I suffered emotional abuse from in-laws, many years ago now when my children were young. I allowed the constant anger, stress, worry, and fear to steal joy from my time with my children. It became all I thought about, all I talked about. I was carrying the emotional abuse into every corner of my life and into all my relationships, and I didn't realise at the time that that was what was happening.
I am still not sure when that defining moment arrived, when I realised that I was handing over control of my life to the abuser, even when they weren't with me, and that I could actually take charge of that part of my story.
It really comes back to the moment you are in right now. You have the choice to allow the worries and fears to take up your full view, and all your thoughts, or you can look at your children and ask yourself what you want them to remember about this moment. Mak e the choice to taste, really taste, the food you are eating with your mind on only that, or the feel of the shower water on your skin and the temperature of it, what your child has brought to you to show you and think about what they need to hear from you in response. Give these moments to you and your children, They are yours. They belong to you. You have fought to have them and deserve to be engaged with them.
Little by little you will find that you can push the worry thoughts back further and further, and make brain space, and joy space, in your home every day for you and your children. Start with 5 minutes here and there. Make that 5 minutes truly yours, and refuse to surrender that precious time to worry. Make the worry wait until "worry time" arrives. Schedule it into your diary if you have to. It will take some practice, but reclaim your inner world for you.
❤️❤️❤️
