One of the most difficult concepts I still wrestle with is the fact that I am not here to suffer and strive. In the old world, we wore our suffering as a badge of honour - the more a person was willing to kill themselves to obtain “success,” the more we admired them socially.
We became so consumed by outward appearances of “success,” that we seldomly looked into what this was costing the soul in hot pursuit of it. We did this both to others and to self.
In June 2018 - a few days after completing my first year of university as an adult continuing education student - I received some news that rocked my life and my world. I learned that all charges against my ex husband had been dropped, and my case against him had been thrown out…like it was nothing.
Those of you who have been with me for a bit know that I am a survivor of domestic violence. I grew up in a narcissistic abusive family system that I am still extracting myself from, and I married a man who would later attempt to take my life.
It was this attempt upon my life that brought me to press charges against him and testify before a jury in December 2016. This jury found him guilty on all charges, and the case was moved to the Manhattan Supreme Court for criminal prosecution. In March 2017, I ended up having to flee from my ex to my “family” here in the UK, when the District Attorney released him on bail and never thought to contact me to let me know my life - and therefore my children’s lives too - were once again in danger.
The reason many DV survivors don’t report or press charges against their offenders, is because of these fucked up legal systems that don’t truly protect us when we do. Instead, they often exploit our pain and vulnerability further if we go through these legal processes - doing stupid shit like releasing our captors and not informing us, or “forgetting” to file our papers on time and causing full cancellation of the cases we sacrifice ourselves to set into motion.
This is what happened to me.
The District Attorney’s office in Manhattan was so enthralled by its moment in the spotlight with the Harvey Weinstein investigation, that they just blew off my case….and probably the cases of other vulnerable survivors waiting for justice in the violent crimes category.
I don’t hesitate to say at all that my being a woman of colour also added to their calloused indifference. The weight of the injustices I have had to suffer through and bear alone in the aftermath of all this, is just a regular assignment that the American legal system has no problem shafting onto black women survivors….like it’s what we deserve and are due.
So, in June 2018 - one year after relocating to the UK under duress, and upon celebrating the successful completion of my first year as a returning university student - I got the news that Mary Ann Keys, the District Attorney on my case, had not only failed to file papers on my behalf that therefore caused my case to be thrown out because of reaching its statute of limitations. She also never bothered to contact me to let me know. Much like nobody bothered to contact me when my ex was released on bail.
I only found out this news weeks later when I took it upon myself to check in because I hadn’t heard anything in a while. Up until then, I had just been awaiting news of the criminal charges court date.
This news - and the completely heartless and cavalier treatment around my and my children’s safety and welfare, as well as the failed delivery of the message - sent me into a tailspin.
I entered a seventeen month period where I couldn’t stop moving.
I couldn’t cry and I couldn’t stop moving.
I am a person who cries quite easily and freely, but even when I tried to release the anguish from all the pain and injustice….I couldn’t. It took me seventeen months to finally cry again, and then I couldn’t stop the flow for three days straight.
In this time I became a devoted “gym bunny.” I continued my university program, was working, and being a full time mom, and hitting the gym almost every day - unable to take a break or a rest day. I found it hard to sit still, and many times would get off the bus to walk to my destination because I couldn’t handle the pause in traffic or at lights.
I walked everywhere I could - sometimes clocking in at over thirty thousand steps in a day outside of my rigorous training program. It was the only way I knew how to handle my mental and emotional state at the time. I was sure if I stopped moving I would fall apart. And I couldn’t afford to fall apart.
I lived in a world that had shown me time and time again that not only did it not give a fuck about helping me when I broke apart into pieces, but that it actually revelled in seeing me in pain and breaking me apart for sport. I couldn’t fall apart because I had nobody to hold me while I learned to piece myself back together again.
I threw myself into obtaining my goals instead - working, working out, attending school, achieving more professional qualifications, and doing my best to be a mom.
And in this period, many thought I had it made. I was “grinding and hustling,” seemingly going after everything I wanted. But the gas that was fuelling these endeavours was an overflow of pain that I only knew how to handle by directing it into doing and achieving.
And the ones who are only able to look at and judge a person from the outside, would project their envy onto me - only able to see the body I was building, the focus I had on achieving, and the fact that nothing seemed to stop me from moving forward.
What they didn’t see, or care to see, was that I was so broken by my circumstances that I didn’t know what else to do to keep it together. All they could see with their shallow perceptions were the tokens I was seemingly racking up. They couldn’t see how lost I was, and that my deep grief couldn’t find its back way home.
This is why we should never seek to think we want what someone else has…because we don’t know the internal battles that propel them into what we perceive to be success.
At this period of my life, I was also deeply admired. Men in the gym would move out of my way when I walked onto the gym floor - out of respect for “my hustle” - and most looking at me from the outside in, thought I had it all figured out. I know this because of conversations I’ve had since with some of these people.
The irony is that I was accruing things on the outside, but falling apart within. And I wonder how many of us on the journey have been in this same boat. I achieved a lot externally through my sufferings, and the pain from the added up injustices in my life actually served to be the fuel which helped me to “achieve” more.
However, the outward appearance of “success” has never been worth what my soul has had to endure to keep up the facade. And I am coming to terms with this all the more today.
We are living through a time when we get to witness the complete downfall of the work force, career structures, and programs and psychologies which supported us all in accruing things externally to the detriment of our own souls.
We are waking up rapidly to the truth that we are worth so much more than we have traded our beauty and resources in to get.
I am on the cusp of transitioning into a new way of creating and being compensated for my craft and contributions. As I navigate my way through, I am learning how to make decisions that aren’t dependent upon my output or what others expect from me, but what I need to finally exit these timelines of suffering which fed the false matrix my pain and trauma on a platter.
Where are you today with all of this? I would love to know.
How are you making sense of your true value in relation to your output and what it has cost you to survive in the old world structures? How are you doing with making your way out of the suffering philosophies that cater only to survival? How is your journey going towards soul satisfying decisions which will ultimately help you to thrive in all ways?
I share one piece of my suffering with you with the full awareness that we all have these stories. And in the false matrix, these tales were used to glorify our strength and stamina. But I’m tired of being unnecessarily strong to get for myself what is naturally due me.
So just checking in on where you are with these suffering stories today too.
Much love!
Solarah 💙✨
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