I love color! It is so pleasing to me to see an array of colors. I am just drawn to it. I never knew why, but I think I do now. Abuse dulls everything! Nothing is as vibrant or exciting when abuse is part of your life. I think my love of color has been an outlet to who I am inside and my fight to keep it present.
Color Represents Life
I pick clothes of varying colors. Despite my mom showing me the pretty yards with a one or two-colored flower theme, the flowers in my yard are all different colors. I like sunsets, rainbows, multicolored rugs, decor accessories, towels, wash cloths and so on. My love of color is so much a part of me that when I was talking to one of my friends a few years ago, I told her I liked many different styles of clothes and didn’t really have one particular style. She thought for a moment and told me that I did have a style and it was color.
Vibrant colors entice the creative part of me. Since my abusers loved to target everything about me, I often felt gray and purposeless. It wasn’t and isn’t true, but for most of my life it’s been my reality. However, because I have a rebellious spirit, mostly for the good, I wouldn’t allow them to take away my humor, smiling, laughing or expressing myself with color in everything from my wardrobe to the colors in my home (I have a burgundy kitchen, a faux finished yellow dining room, light blue laundry room, light pink craft and exercise room and a multipurpose room downstairs with a huge wall painted in Colts blue with a huge Colts logo in white – yay Indianapolis – I even painted my youngest’s room with red and black chalkboard paint.) Color represents life to me and abuse is a way of taking away someone’s life without killing them. It turns their target into an object to be used and manipulated and not a person with thoughts and dreams..
Abuse Dulls Everything
When someone loses their life, they lose all their color and appear white or grayish because their lifeblood is no longer flowing through their veins. I think our blood was made to be red for that reason. It gives us color, brightens our appearance and delivers nutrients and oxygen to every cell in our bodies.
God created the world to be bursting with color and textures to delight our eyes. He could have made it dull and one note, but that’s not Who He is. He did this because He loves us so much. Those who abuse you do not love you. It may be that they have no idea what love is supposed to be or it may just be that they are so self-focused that no one else takes that place of importance in their lives. They have created a life around their built up beliefs about themselves and anyone who challenges those beliefs will be met with destructive and angry verbal and/or physical attacks. They have chosen to put themselves above everything and everyone else to the point that even the ones they say they love, and actually may think they love, are primarily in their lives to suit their purpose.
If you have been abused and you feel dull and purposeless, find at least one thing that brings life to your life. If you know someone who lives with or has experienced abuse, help them identify the one thing that brings joy to their life. Abuse dulls everything, but that doesn’t mean it’s the way it has to stay.
~ Joanna Lynn
