Once Powerless Now Powerful

There are just too many times that someone or something took Mori’s power away. So many times that she could not recount all of the instances or even count them on her fingers. Every time Mori looked back on these events, she felt the overwhelming sensation of dread. The pain is all too raw or real in her memories. For her power was taken from her first just because she was born a female. Second, from the bullies, she faced in early childhood for being too small for her age or for simply just being smart. She can still remember her elementary school friends telling her that her overachievement in class made them look bad. 

Little did she know that those trivial moments were only the beginning of a, so far, short lifetime of being made to be powerless. Fast-forwarding to her college years, she was far away from home and for the first time allowed to be a bit of a rebel. Of course, Mori stayed true to her studies. Never daring to party or even hang out with anyone until she knew her homework was done and she was prepared for her Biology tests. It wasn’t too long into college that she found out how the stories of women being sexually assaulted in college, especially young unsuspecting freshman women, was just as commonplace as she had caught wind of. Sure you could argue that this particular freshman woman was out partying and checking out the campus late at night, so she deserved it right? All the harassment, the men trying to get her drunk in order to have sex with her. No, Mori didn’t think she deserved it upon reflection. 

Even those moments of powerlessness couldn’t even compare to the way her ex-fiancee treated her from the moment she met her. See back then they were just meeting on friendly terms at a bookstore. There is nothing romantic about talking to someone at a bookstore that you have been waiting in line at in order to purchase overpriced textbooks. We seemingly hit it off anyways but at that point in time Mori was staunchly and wrongfully in the closet and her newfound friend was out as a Lesbian. Time went on from those moments. Times of true happiness and times of shattering pain. 

Before her ex-fiancee completely got her hooks in her. Mori dated a man who repeatedly got her drunk to make it easier for him to have sex with her. That alone should have caused Mori to leave him even sooner than she did. Well, she dated him for about six months and the entire time he did not treat her any better than when they first met. Towards the end of this ill-fated relationship, he was increasingly becoming possessive, would not let her see her friends, and was jealous of everyone she came in contact with. Mori didn’t even wait for her laryngitis to go away when she dumped him. 

Following that was a year of hard work in both school and in temporary jobs for Mori. All the while slowly becoming closer to her ex-fiancee even though she was not out yet simply because they had become roommates. Mori suspected that her ex-fiancee was emotionally abusive but she was manipulative enough to use Mori’s good nature against her. Therefore, Mori made the wrong decision to stay with her through all the ups and downs. Through all of the financial manipulation, emotional ridicule, and endless lecturing, Mori stayed. Mori went so far as to trust her then girlfriend’s judgment over her father’s. Her father who had loved her all her life and was the one that was telling Mori the truth. Mori just didn’t want to listen to it and didn’t want to accept it. There is more to this part of the story but to write it out would be unbearable. 

All the while finishing out not one but two undergraduate degrees, Mori held on to her then-fiancee. Seemingly blind to the way she was being treated since both of them had endured medical hardships a year before the wedding date. Mori started to wake up though leading up to the planned wedding. She had dreams and fantasies of leaving her ex romantic partner. Yet she was troubled by the fact that she would have to leave her emotional support animal in the hands of her abuser. Just because her then partner had her name on the adoption papers while Mori was not allowed to at the time of getting their shared pet to add her name too. Mori didn’t want to leave before she finished out the degrees she had worked six long years for. So, she followed her ex-fiancee to a different city to work after graduation before the wedding, powerless to convince her otherwise. At the time Mori knew she did not want to give up the life she was building even if it was started on false pretenses. However, in the days leading up to the wedding and through all the sleepless nights, Mori devised a plan to get her power back at any cost. Instead of doing the right thing she took a chance before the wedding and flung herself out of a car to get away. Just after signing the marriage license to take to the ceremony. 

After that, it took months and months for Mori to feel a sense of her power again. Whether it was through reconnecting with her family and friends that she had been separated from by her ex-fiancee. Through going to the gym to build up muscle in the hopes of being both stronger physically and mentally. Or finally through the process of healing from all the memories of the ex-lovers that had hurt her. For she had already forgiven anyone else who ever made her feel bad, for she never really knew the motivations behind their actions. She also learned early on in life that you have to forgive your family and friends, otherwise one could wind up alone and once again powerless. If only she had listened to the lessons she was given about sticking up for yourself sooner, she very well may have avoided the loss of her power in the first place.