Laboring to Love an Abusive Mate

The tears came often for a long time with every offense, secret found out, lie told, and more.  The emotional abusive, physically violent, and miserable type of men that came and went out of my life (as well as those who I had pushed out), I had grown weary of the tears I cried for them.  Swollen eyes, darken circles, and that feeling of weakness that comes over you from crying so much had worn me down emotionally, physically and spiritually time and time again.  I even stopped going to church for a long time because I just didn't need to feel emotionally charged, crying yet again over all that went wrong was the last thing I wanted to do.  Yet, I eventually did go and kept going, and to my surprise, the guilt, grief, and other emotional burdens left. As I grew older, more secure in myself, and taking charge of my life, I realized that the tears weren't falling as much as they once did.  I could care less about "the acts" that my abusers had put on to appear lik

Like many others, I have been through my share of low moments in my life so far including emotional abuse when I was young as well as the loss of my mother due to suicide. However, despite these major adversities, I never suffered from clinical depression and I'll probably never really know the exactly why I was spared from this common mental health condition either. Was it because of a unique biochemistry in my head? Was it my attitude? Or was it because of certain actions I took? I'm very much aware that there are many people out there who are not so fortunate. I have had friends, relatives and significant others who suffered from clinical depression. And of course, there was my own mother who basically lost her battle against a severe case. So even though I have not personally suffered from clinical depression, I have had a front row seat to it many times to know that this is real. One thing that I have personally noticed with many people who are depressed is that they are n