Breaking a Generation of Abuse

Inspired by Colleen Hoover ‘It Ends with Us’

Colleen Hoover wrote a heart-rending novel, “It Ends With Us”. Many people romanticise the
relationships between the characters while neglecting the topic at hand. The story is primarily about
domestic abuse that I, Lily Blossom Bloom, got situated in. It is a subject that is extremely personal to
Colleen Hoover, where she is verbalising many of the things she has experienced and seen. Therefore,
the romance is only a subplot. This novel is truly about my journey.

From the very beginning, I feared letting him in. I built barriers around my heart, but I tore them down
for him. In the end, he reminded me of why I was afraid to do so in the first place. Now that I look back, I
suppose it was never real because he claimed one thing and showed me the opposite. Actions speak
louder than words, and in this case, his actions spoke volumes.

He bathed me like a hot sponge with his manipulative words, blistering my skin. He dragged me to hell
and back, clawing my stomach on every sharp rock he could find. His grip on me was so strong that it was
suffocating me. Sometimes I’d notice a pleading smile on his face. What a sick individual. To him, this was
a fun masochistic game, but my pain ran deep into the caverns of my heart. In the end, it was my hands
that were bloodied. I was the villain. He was the unintentional victim. How did no one perceive his
genuine self?

I tried my best, I gave him too many chances to better himself, to communicate better, to be more like
me. But you can’t change someone, can you? I was killing myself over and over, trying to fix a man that I
could not fix. Sometimes the desired apology does not arrive, and when it does, it is neither desired nor
required. Ryle’s apology arrived too late.

I had been let down by men so many times, beginning with my own father, that there was no
disappointment left for Ryle. My parents shaped my concept of love from an early age. It had become so
shattered and scarred over the years that I would rather have no love at all than have a love like theirs.
Sometimes when Ryle was enraged, his words stabbed my skin and left me bruised and humiliated. I
couldn't help but see the identical look in his eyes that my father once gave my mother. I couldn't help
but notice the identical tone in his voice that my father once spoke to my mother. I'm wondering if I
seemed as afraid as she once did.

I let him in, I let him get close to places he never deserved to be, and he violated me. Unfortunately, the
individuals we trust pose the greatest threat to us all. They have the ability to violate us in the most
awful ways.

He abused the words 'I love you’ so much, it lost its value and became stale. He compelled me to wear
forgiveness around my own neck, making me quietly complicit in my own victimisation. His love almost
killed me; a lethal attraction that seemed so familiar. I kept my head submerged, attempting to distort
my perception of reality. It was more convenient to pretend we were improving than to confront the
prospect of abandoning you. I had hands and a fading heart, but I couldn't imagine letting you go until
the opportunity to shield my 15-year-old self from grief no woman should ever feel presented itself.
The first time his hands touched my flesh, I felt anguish. He said it was an accident, and I forgave him.
"There is no such thing as bad people. We’re all just people who sometimes do bad things," He'd claim.
Worst part? I remained faithful. Ryle's peril was disguised as safety by love. Just because his favourite
colour was red did not give him the right to paint my cheeks crimson; I am not his creation. Painting my
face with the heat from his hands was not ‘inventive’, it was ruthless.

Eventually, I faced the incontestable fact, the truth. I felt protected by the thought that I was finally free
of the enslavement imposed by his words. That was until I glanced down at the positive pregnancy test in
my shaky palms. When I saw the two pink lines on the test, I sobbed. I was pregnant. The world seemed
to come to a halt, frozen in time, just for that instant. I remember it as clear as day. I refused to let my
baby grow up witnessing abuse. I couldn’t allow my child to beg her father to change in the same way
that I begged mine. Yes, I made the difficult decision to divorce Ryle. Emmy, our angelic daughter, had
become a battlefield, a frontier between two countries. She was the collateral damage, the conundrum
that connected but also divided Ryle and I. As the mother of Ryle’s child, I loved him. But as a human, I
hated him.

The cycle of abuse is a difficult one to break. When a kid grows up, they endure abuse and pass it on to
their own children, perpetuating the cycle until one child breaks it. I hope you'll be the one to break the
cycle, to be the change. That is what made Lily special; Lily broke a generation of abuse for her daughter.

Colleen Hoover spoke up for all the other women in this world that are also afraid to raise their voices,
fighting for the women who did not make it out alive by writing a devastating novel that sinks its claws
into you and refuses to let go, long after you’ve finished it.

Lily Blossom Bloom, I hope that you heal from all the things that have made you hate this world, you
deserve a chance to get better too.