For years, the world has associated Jana Kramer with her cheating ex. That’s okay — Jana helped forge that association.
But while cheating is a heartbreaking betrayal, there are worse partners. Some deeds are not hurtful, but evil.
When Jana was a young adult, she met an older man.
In a heartfelt post for a great cause, she opened up about how he slowly revealed himself to be a monstrous abuser.
Please be advised that this discussion involves graphic descriptions of domestic violence and partner abuse.
Jana Kramer shared this throwback photo on Instagram.
“This is a very hard photo for me to look at,” Jane Kramer admitted in her caption.
“One might look at this and see two smiling faces,” Jana wrote. “A daughter with her mom.”
She acknowledged: “But what was under the smile is something that I still to this day have a hard time talking about.”
“I don’t remember the excuses that I told people,” Jana wrote, “when I flew home to escape my abuser.”
Jana knows that she must have made excuses “about the cuts and scrapes on my shoulder and arms.”
She added “or why my ribs were hurting.”
“But when I look at this photo,” Jana wrote in reflection, “that’s all I see.”
Jana described: “I see a broken girl who was weeks prior pinned to the ground.”
This, she revealed, was “while the man that ‘loved’ me was strangling me saying that he was going kill me.”
Jana expressed: “I was so full of shame.”
“I was made to feel like I had no one, and no one would believe me,” Jana noted. It is an all-too-familiar experience for survivors.
“And,” she continued, “that the reason I would be choked or hit was because I was bad.”
At the time, Jana felt “That I was wrong and I deserved it. For years I have held on to those beliefs.”
Jana then vowed that “one day soon I will speak more on the abuse that followed that one.”
“And the patterns that continued,” she continued, “but to be honest it’s been a journey.”
Jana acknowledged “and one I’m still trying to walk through knowing that wasn’t the last abusive relationship.”
“One of the hardest rocks I threw into the stream when I was at on-site was the rock ‘I deserve abuse,'” Jana noted.
This, she explained, was “because for so long that’s what I thought.”
Jana admitted: “I held onto that for years thinking that was true. That’s what I was made to believe.”
Now, Jana wrote, “I speak out to help others and to hopefully help at least one person who is reading this to talk to someone.”
In all caps, she correctly affirmed: “YOU DO NOT DESERVE ABUSE.”
Jana elaborated: “You do not deserve any form of abuse…physically, sexually, mentally, verbally, financial, emotionally abusive relationships etc.”
“THAT IS ALL ABUSE,” Jana noted, assuring survivors and current victims: “There are people who want to be there for you.”
“That are there for you,” she emphasized. “Please don’t wait until you lose your breath.”
Jana expressed: “Your life, Your heart, your soul is meant to be here and is meant to be loved and cherished.”
“I am linking in my bio a place to find help. @safehorizon and so many places are there for you,” Jana wrote.
She concluded her heartfelt caption: “Please talk to someone.”
Jana then linked to safehorizon here. Like Jana, we encourage anyone experiencing abuse to reach out to trusted loved ones for help and support. You deserve better.