How to Find Your Worth in an Abusive Relationship

An Open Letter to the Woman Who Has Forgotten Her Worth

Disclaimer: This letter naturally has a heavier tone as the issue at hand is women who are trapped in abusive relationships. Please take care in reading this and always keep your safety and wellbeing as your priority. In this letter, you will not find advice for your situation. Instead, this letter will invite you into self-reflection to support you in deciding what your next chapter will look like. If you are reading this letter, please take a moment to pause and acknowledge why you chose to read this. If you or someone you know fits this identity, allow yourself to be truly honest in that pause. Let that acknowledgement close the current chapter and open a new page. After reading this letter, my hope is that your next chapter begins with you.

To the woman in an abusive relationship:

I want you to know that I see you. I acknowledge the pain you are in day in and day out. I give respite to the weight you carry for just this moment. Let yourself sit with me and bare the load with you. All I ask is that you read this with an honest mindset. You cannot argue with what is. Acceptance is the first step to making a difference. Allow yourself to find your starting point and then meet yourself where you are at.

If you were to imagine an empty water well that is 100-feet-deep, I want you to place yourself at the very bottom of that well. At this depth, you are in total darkness; too far from the light source to see anything right now. Don’t be afraid to acknowledge you are here. The light is there and if you keep reading, you will know how to find it.

Beneath your feet you can feel a firm dirt foundation. Feeling along the walls, they are smooth at this depth and will not aid in the journey out. In this moment, you are trapped with no way out. Deep breath. This is your starting point.

Now, even though from where you are you cannot see it yet, your abusive partner is standing outside the well at the tippy top. In their hands is a shovel and next to them is a very large mound of dirt, much like the soil underneath your feet. Not rope. Not a ladder. Not a cell phone to call for help. A shovel and dirt.

With that acknowledgement, each time that shovel is used, the dirt does not fall neatly in a single clump. Due to the depth of the well, this dirt scatters and showers down touching every surface of what lies below. And that is you. At the very bottom of the well, your partner’s actions shower down impacting every aspect of your experience. Acknowledge that at this current state, your situation is far past a few singular pebbles. Because at this depth, your senses are heightened in the darkness, so every action sends a barrage instead.

Sit with this for just a moment. Let’s pause everything and be present with where you are starting. For now, the falling dirt has stopped and the ground’s new layer has settled. In this pause, I want you to think of someone you truly love and care about. This does not have to be that person currently at the top of that well. Put your loved person in your place of darkness and stand outside the well instead of your partner.

Not putting much thought into why, I want you to think about what actions you would take for that person you love trapped in that well. Think about how you would feel. Ponder your actions. And reflect on the effort you would put into that loved one. Hold on to that for another moment.

I want you to stay here and reflect. Look at the choices you would make in a scenario where your thoughts, feelings, and actions would all reflect how you care for that person at the bottom of the well. You most likely did not have to think too hard about what you would do. Taking action on how you show love and care for another is probably second nature. Sit with that.

Now let’s pull you back to being the one at the bottom of that dark well with your abusive partner standing at the top with the next shovel of dirt just waiting. Be present in that moment and then ask yourself this question:

Why do you hold yourself to a higher standard of how love is given than you allow yourself to receive as love from others?

Let me say that again, if you are willing to do it for others, why would you accept anything less, as the bare minimum, than what you are willing to give?

You deserve at least what you are willing to give and allowing anything less only leads to lack, not love.

This is the moment of reflection where I am going to ask you to see yourself now. You are worthy of receiving the kind of love that builds you up, not buries you. Your kindness and love deserve to be felt by people who are willing to share the same and more with you. Your efforts add value to others rather than keeping them beneath you. You are worth that effort in return.

Take a deep breath and remember in this letter, you are keeping an honest mindset and not arguing with what is. As a human being on this planet, you deserve, as a bare minimum, the same level of love and care that you are willing to put out into the world. Now factor in that you are someone’s daughter, possibly sister, maybe mother, or even someone’s grandmother and we are no longer talking about “just a human being.”

See your worth on that very basic human level if it helps, but don’t get stuck there. You are more than a certain species deserving of love. You are someone who has shown up for others despite the lack of love you received back. Not every human can do that, so recognize your value and hold on to it.

Finally, I want to invite you to close that chapter now.  Allow yourself to complete that portion of your story where you forgot your worth. It’s okay that it happened. It’s okay that you are here instead of the happy parts. It’s okay to meet yourself at this starting point. And it’s okay to turn the page and start a new chapter.

No matter where you take the story from here, start the next journey as the heroine in your own story. Start showing yourself the love and care you willingly give to others. Make the changes necessary in your life to reflect the value you hold. And never, ever, ever again believe that you deserve anything less than you are willing to give.

Sending my love,

Nicole