Female Warriors: Healing Testimonials

By Lisanne Wayra Félix

This book is filled with testimonials of women from all over the world, that have experienced an abusive relationship. All stories are anonimous to protect the safety of each individual. The different stories are mind-blowing, true eye-openers and all have a similarity, raising awareness on the subject. It’s truly mind-boggling how often situations like domestic relational violence occur and how little this is talked about. It is a very serious problem that needs solving, which we can achieve working all together and first of all shed light on.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: Sep 7, 2022
• ISBN: 9798765233184

Lisanne Wayra Félix

Lisanne is an advocate for women’s rights to achieve equality. She’s very aware of the fact that subjects like domestic violence, abuse and violation, needs to receive more attention. She graduated as a primary school teacher, is an ex-professional fighter who represented the Peruvian’s national team, founded a NGO to run social projects, momentarily working in the Andean mountains with local women. She facilitates therapy sessions, thai massage, energy healing, yoga classes and muay thai classes.

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Copyright © 2022 Lisanne Wayra Félix.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 979-8-7652-3176-0 (sc)

ISBN: 979-8-7652-3180-7 (hc)

ISBN: 979-8-7652-3318-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022915126

Balboa Press rev. date: 08/29/2022

CONTENTS

Preface

Acknowledgment

Introduction

Never Forgotten

Etiology of Dysfunctional Relationships

Abusive Relationships

Red Flags

Questions And Answers

Stories

First Story

Second Story

Third Story

Fourth Story

Fifth Story

Sixth Story

Seventh Story

Eighth Story

Ninth Story

Tenth Story

Eleventh Story

Epilogue

About The Author

PREFACE

It is part of my soul’s purpose to be a voice for all the women that are not heard, not seen and not believed.

Personally, it’s very important for me to share this, as I don’t believe there is enough awareness on this topic. I’ve come across so many women in the last two years who have suffered either abuse in their relationship, or sexual abuse as a little girl. I can’t continue to be silent any longer. After hearing these experiences from all of these beautiful, strong, brave, female warriors, I am feeling called to do something about it. I believe it is part of my life path to shed light on this.

I believe them, I understand them, and I value them. Every single one.

In my opinion, there needs to be more readily available support for both the one that has been abused, as well as the abuser. We can begin to heal by opening up the conversation about abuse and toxic relationships.

Let us all value and be of support to one another, both men and women, of all ages, all races, all circumstances. Let us open our arms and embrace each other with unconditional love. Let us all grow, learn, and evolve as a human species. If we all continue to value our own growth, violence will disappear.

It took me more time than I had planned to produce this, but I needed to go slow to process all of this. I was certainly triggered and emotional while listening to and writing each story. But the importance of sharing these lived experiences and shed light on the topic is worth it.

From the bottom of my heart I thank each and every woman that confided in me and shared their experience for this book.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Words can’t describe how grateful I am for these beautiful, intelligent and strong women that surround me. They all stepped up last minute to help me, with their expertise, to finish the book with only little time left. These women are the embodiment of sisterhood to me.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart!

_____________________________________________________

Love and light to every human being

INTRODUCTION

This is a book that shines light on a topic that is usually taboo: stories of abusive and toxic relationships. Each and every story in here is true and told to me by the women themselves.

It takes very brave women to share these kinds of intense and horrifying experiences. Understand that these stories come from all over the world; abuse is something that happens globally and in each country of the world. There are no exceptions. It is something that needs to be talked about more; a topic that we need to be more open about.

These stories can help you open your eyes and get a better in depth understanding of abusive relationships. It might help you feel more empathy for women in situations like these, as reading the pages, takes you deeply into the story. You might even recognize yourself living a similar experience or having lived a similar experience, realizing you’re among a lot of other woman suffering from (lived) abuse.

If you’re a man, you might recognize yourself as the abuser or have even lived similar experiences the other way around, being the victim. Or you notice that a friend is living in an abusive relationship. In any case, let this be an eye-opener and help avoid abuse in the present and future.

If you’re faint of heart, highly sensitive or empathic--I warn you that these stories are quite heavy, definitely intense, and sometimes hard to read. Take your time to read these stories and make sure to do so only when you’re ready for it, as it can bring up repressed emotions and be triggering.

If you are easily triggered by talk of abuse and assault, be wary reading any further.

NEVER FORGOTTEN

Netherlands

I was putting my make-up on and doing my hair in the bathroom, getting ready for a night out with my sister. I was looking forward to this because I hadn’t gone out in such a long time because of my jealous ex-husband, and my kids that I take care of. Finally, a night out and with the best person--my sister.

Without me noticing, the father of my children (who I was separated from) came into the house and said to our children,

-You stay here and you stay quiet!

Slowly and silently, he went up the stairs and before I knew this was happening, I saw the bathroom door open and him coming furiously at me. Immediately, I felt something terrible would happen. And it did.

He threw me down on the floor, grabbed my head, and repeatedly smashed it against the floor and the wall. I felt something warm coming out of my nose. And then I could see something and realized what was going on: I noticed it was my blood streaming down my body. I felt my nose breaking in little pieces and I tried to escape from him, but he was too strong. He grabbed a scissor and started stabbing me wherever he could: more than sixty times. The whole floor was becoming a pool of blood--my blood! I was so scared. I screamed for help, but the pain was too much and his strength overpowered me.

In the meantime, my seven year old son heard my screams and ran to the neighbor, knocked on his door and told him,

-My father is hurting my mother, please do something!

The neighbor called the police, but he was too scared to come inside to intervene himself.

While I was struggling, feeling the stinging pain with each stab of the scissors in my chest and in my arm, I felt all power leaving my body. When I couldn’t get up anymore he pulled me by my hair to my bedroom, pulling big chunks of hair out of my head. I felt as if my head was about to explode. By now I couldn’t scream anymore, I couldn’t cry, I couldn’t do anything.

Suddenly I felt something cold and hard as metal thumping into my face and with the little bit I could still see, I saw he was hitting me with his belt. I couldn’t react anymore, I was in shock and in too much pain, struggling to stay alive. Suddenly I heard police sirens. I saw the look in his eyes: he was scared and he ran down the stairs and jumped four meters down off the balcony and ran away.

I lost consciousness. I was brought to the closest hospital and struggled for my life on the operation table for hours. The doctors came out to tell my family that they really hoped this monster would be caught, because they had never seen someone beaten up so terribly in their whole careers. My nose was flat broken, my head was swollen with internal bleeding, my arms were swollen and my chest was full of wounds from the scissor stabs. At that hospital there wasn’t anything more they could do, so they told my family I had to be brought to a different hospital by a trauma helicopter.

My family went there by car and were told to stay in the waiting room. The doctors did what they could, trying to save my life with all the internal bleeding, while I was in a coma.

I struggled for nearly ten hours.

Finally, the doctors went to the waiting room and told my family that there would be no way of saving me.

I died that morning.

I left behind my three sons, whom I love deeply with all my heart.

May her soul be with the light.

ETIOLOGY OF DYSFUNCTIONAL

RELATIONSHIPS

There are several reasons why a relationship can be called dysfunctional. There may also be different degrees of severity, whereby the degree of severity and the boundary can differ per person and per couple. In essence, it often concerns behavioral patterns involving suffering, often accompanied by physical and/or psychological abuse and inability to develop normally as a person.

Obviously it is very sad when children are born, grow up and are raised within these types of relationships. In this way, damage also occurs in the next generation. Apart from the fact that these are people’s lives and that it is sad that people are suffering. These types of relationships often also demand their price in the social society sense, such as divorces, loss, unemployment, illness and absence at work, treatments and the costs associated with such matters.

Normally, two people are always involved in a relationship. Each person with his/her own genetic material and baggage, but also with his/her own development and education in his/her parental family such as nature and nurture factors. For a relationship it does matter how the character of the person is formed, which personality traits someone displays and if there is perhaps, in the worst case, a personality disorder, and if so, which one?

It is also important how developed a person is in different areas, but also how intelligent and skilled someone is. What are someone’s coping strategies and their behavioral and cognitive tactics? People with a lower IQ have more difficulty understanding things about the world around them and about different relationships and can become an easy prey for all kinds of abuse.

Any trauma a person has experienced can also affect relationships. The social-economic situation of a couple can mean that there may be dependence due to a lack of financial and other resources, which forces a person to choose between, ending up on the street or having to put up with things within the dysfunctional relationship.

Finally, culture also plays an important role. For example, there will be situations in which different cultures react and deal with in different ways. Consider, for example, the role and degree of involvement of an older generation, whether or not to report aggression or transgressive behavior and crossing boundaries.

ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIPS

An abusive relationship has many shapes and sizes and can often start out with very subtle warning signs. It mostly contains two or more parties where one has power over the other. The victim is in a position of vulnerability or dependency. The perpetrator will use this position of power to hurt, humiliate or exploit the other. Due to being in a weaker position the victim often feels like he or she doesn’t have any other choice than to give in to the abuse. The victim is forced to let the other cross her or his boundaries which often results in a huge amount of guilt and shame by the victim.

Types of violence

Domestic violence is a word used for different types of violence:

• Partner violence / relational violence.

• Child abuse.

• Elder abuse.

• Children who witness domestic violence.

• Stalking or harassment by ex-partner.

• Honor-related violence.

• Psychological abuse like gas-lighting.

Gas-lighting¹

Gas-lighting typically happens very gradually in a relationship; in fact, the abusive partner’s actions may seem harmless at first. Over time, however, these abusive patterns continue and a victim can become confused, anxious, isolated, and depressed, and they can lose all sense of what is actually happening. Then they start relying on the abusive partner more and more to define reality, which creates a very difficult situation to escape.

In order to overcome this type of abuse, it’s important to start recognizing the signs and eventually learn to trust yourself again. Signs of being a victim of gas-lighting include:

• You constantly second-guess yourself.

• You ask yourself, Am I too sensitive? multiple times a day.

• You often feel confused and even crazy.

• You’re always apologizing to your partner.

• You can’t understand why, with so many apparently good things in your life, you aren’t happier.

• You frequently make excuses for your partner’s behavior to friends and family.

• You find yourself withholding information from friends and family so you don’t have to explain or make excuses.

• You know something is terribly