The Walk Home from a Broken Road: The Struggles of Living in an Abusive Relationship and Finding the Strength to Rediscover Myself

by Crawford, Rebecca

• ISBN13: 9781469744223
• ISBN10: 1469744228
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-02-21
• Publisher: Textstream

Summary

Rebecca Crawford had always viewed herself as strong and in-dependent. She never would have imagined that she'd find her-self trapped in an abusive situation. In the Walk Home from a Broken Road, Crawford shares details from her five-year relationship with her abusive boyfriend, Blake. In this memoir, she narrates her story-from the time she met Blake while working at a pizza restaurant when she was seventeen years old, to the day she found the courage to leave the relationship, and to the present, where she has found the fortitude to heal, to learn, and to grow. Crawford tells how, slowly and deliberately, Blake cut her off from her friends, family, school, and activities in order to control her every movement and how that control escalated to a torrent of abuse. The Walk Home from a Broken Road provides a firsthand account of an emotionally dysfunctional relationship. It shares Crawford's intensely personal feelings that give great insight into the mindset of a woman trapped in an abusive situation. But more than that, it provides hope for others who face similar circumstances.

Excerpts

Slowly, he began to present his jealous side. He did not like that I had friendships apart from him. Blake was jealous of my relationship with my best friends. He hated the idea of me having any male friends, and he was insecure about my previous boyfriends. However, he couldn't display all his faults and insecurities right away. If he had expected me to give up everything at the beginning of our relationship, I never would have gone for it. A controlling person is not openly controlling. They are manipulative. They take a little at a time. I was less resistant to giving up an inch than I would have been giving up a mile. So that's how it began, taking inch by inch by inch, until I had nothing left. He began his conquest for power by dictating how I spent my free time. His first mission was to eliminate any interaction with boys. He didn't like me spending my lunch period with any guy friends from school. I had always been a tomboy, so some of my closest friends were boys. ... Though I had only spent a few innocent lunch periods conversing with friends, I was questioned and belittled for my "lack of understanding" of how a girlfriend should act. So I ignored any lunch offer by even some of my dearest friends in hopes of appeasing Blake, but it did not end with my isolation from the opposite sex.