My name is Aisha Griffin and I am a resident of Montgomery, Al. Throughout my 33 years of life, I've had to fight many battles and domestic violence was one. I went through a lot at such a young age, causing me to have an eternal shut down. I never wore my feelings, and pretending had become natural. As I became of age to have my own personal relationship with men, I honestly didn't know what to expect because I had not been shown. It's a saying that a father can be the first man to break his daughter heart, and I agree. My father and I have a relationship up until this day, but it's not the kind I would prefer it to be. As I got older I had certain expectations of him, and it always was a let down. But that was my daddy, and I loved him. I carried that same forgiving love into my own relationships. Of course the abuse started off small in the verbal stage, but abuse is abuse. I got immune to it, and it became a normal part of my life. It's only natural when in a relationship to be willing to compromise, but don't allow compromising to become settling. I had reached a point in my life where I no longer had drive, and settling was the easy way out. Different relationships leading to different levels of abuse, but gradually progressed to constant physical abuse. I made the excuses, shut people out who had my best interest at heart, and held on to sorry's hoping it would really be the last time. Most of all I learned that I was holding on to a image that would never be reality. I often questioned what I was excepting, but I was too scared of a life without it. It wasn't what another might consider love, but it was at the moment for me. My worse experience of domestic violence ended me in the hospital on March 24, 2012. I laid in a local hospital in ICU due to a gun shot wound fighting for my life. Family was told it didn't look good, but God had other plans in store for me. Of course one would think the being grateful for life and being out of the relationship would be enough to bounce back to a normal life, but unfortunately it wasn't. My life was in a million and one pieces, and I didn't know where to begin with trying to put them back together. Life should have felt new to me, but I felt captured. I was ashamed of what I had been through and I continued to try and hide it versus deal with it. I had myself captured within my own fear of change, it was easier to say what I wanted than to act on it. I had to undergo a transformation stage in life, and I often compare it to a butterfly coming out of the cocoon. After transformation I was free, and had a different outlook to life. Everything was new and out of the ordinary, but I finally was new too! I regained control over what was mine all along, my life. I finally let go of a tarnished pass, and flew off into a brighter future diligently.
