Injury to Asset

One of the benefits of healing from abuse is the ability to help others prevent it. A friend was talking to me about her relationship, confused about the behavior of her boyfriend. Let me paint you a picture.
He has to drive her to and from work, which is 5 minutes from their apartment, (because he wants to spend more time with her). The first time she didn't want to have sex when he wanted it, he threw a fit. When she laughed and joked with the boy who was waiting on them at a restaurant, her boyfriend was furious and left her there. They've been together for 2 months.

If you have been through abuse, you know what comes next. This road only leads once place. I was able to tell my friend about my experience so she could see how abuse begins and where it leads. She could see clearly that she needs to get out now.

We also talked about our responsibility for making particular choices in men. Most of us want to be in a relationship, to have someone to share our lives with, but there may be other motivating factors behind our choices. My suggestion to any woman in this situation is to make a commitment to herself not to get involved with any man until she figures out what it is in her that is making her make bad choices in men.
Whether it is a childhood-instilled belief of deserving punishment or an unconscious belief that we can't do any better, we have to find the root cause of our choices and heal that.

My friend and I talked about self-worth and deserving happiness. We talked about learning to love ourselves and value ourselves enough that we know we deserve to be treated well. It's all about honoring ourselves with the choices we make. If we don't love ourselves, we won't honor ourselves with our choices.

I certainly never would have consciously chosen to go through violent and sexual abuse, but having been through it, I'm glad that I can draw on those experiences to help someone else avoid them. I think any experience can become an assett, if we learn from it and use that knowledge to help another.