You don’t have to wear a cape to be a hero. The biggest super power that we all hold is honesty and telling our truths. It’s not always easy. It’s not even close to being easy a majority of the time. But when a person does, we should all applaud that courage and take it for what it is.
Strength.
Melissa Benoist has always been a private person – in our opinion. But what she shared today brought tears to our eyes and a sense of not knowing what to say.
In an Instagram Live, Melissa revealed the fact that she was a survivor of domestic violence and intimate partner violence (IPV).
In the 14-minute video, she talked about everything from how it started to how it ended and how she’s still healing. She went into detail about his jealousy, how he would check her devices, was emotionally manipulative and more. She spoke how he criticized what she wore and how he got angry when she spoke to other men.
“I learned what it felt like to be pinned down and slapped repeatedly, punched so hard I felt the wind go out of me, dragged by my hair across pavement, head-butted, pinched until my skin broke, slammed against he wall so hard the drywall broke, choked,” she said.
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She spoke about the incident that changed everything – when he threw his iPhone at her, the injuries were something she could not hide, and the emergency room visit that followed. It was because of a friend having the courage to ask her if she was a victim of domestic violence, that she admitted for the first time that she was a victim of domestic violence.
“Leaving was not a walk in a park. It’s not an event — it’s a process,” she said.
She added on her Instagram live stating, “None of this is salacious news, it was my reality. What I went through caused a tectonic shift in my outlook on life.”
She posted an Instagram post after the live.
“The long and winding road of healing and reconciliation has brought me to this moment where I feel strong enough to talk about my experience openly, honestly and without shame,” she wrote. “By sharing my story, hopefully I can empower others to seek help and extricate themselves from abusive relationships. Everyone deserves to be loved void of violence, fear and physical harm.”
“If you are enduring what I went through and you see this, you might be able to find the tiny straw that will break the camel’s back,” she said.
