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stella41b -> RE: When I was abusive I was blind to it (4/22/2008 4:38:20 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: SimplyMichael
Many of us tend to be highly dismissive of new relationship that have major problems, often quickly saying "get out now". I tend to agree with that line of reasoning. However, I find I often disagree when it is a longer term relationship with real connection and chemistry where one of the partners has issues.
To me, as someone who has more options than many as to partners, finding someone you have real chemistry with and who you connect with on a core level is rare and should not be tossed aside lightly. That is NOT the same as saying "cling no matter what" or "put up with anything" but instead simply an acknowledgement of its value.
I loved the OP SimplyMichael, really, but admit here I'm 50/50. I agree with most of what you say, but there's a bit here in the opening two paragraphs I don't quite agree with.
I go along with everything you say about the chemistry and connection being all important, and yes many people do have that 'bail out quick strategy' but the thing is where do you draw the line between fascination, infatuation, emotional and mental connection, and genuine chemistry?
How do you stick around long enough if your strategy if 'bail out at the first opportunity'? Please don't try to answer, because I don't think there is an answer. It depends on the two people concerned and the circumstances.
And for the 'it will never happen to me' camp - how do you know? How can you be so sure?
Maybe someone can explain to me how it's possible to strike up a loving relationship, even a friendship, with someone you're treating as a potential adversary and who you are on your guard with?
So okay. The people who come on here and claim 'I have never been abused'. Come on everyone, Jerry Springer style, let's give them a round of applause. Give yourself a medal if you like. Only don't come on here and brag about it like it's some kind of achievement. It isn't. Understand that in this world you are in a small minority. A very small minority. Consider yourself extremely lucky and get over it.
Not everybody has that luck. Quite a lot of people, myself included, got it in their childhood. They never got a chance to stick up for themselves. Some have had to live through many years, not just as children, but way into their adulthood before they actually managed to work it out. They had to go through relationship after relationship, some have gone through three or four marriages before it finally hit home. Some however remained clueless and continued with life, crossing over the line and going from abused to abuser without even noticing it.
Through my voluntary work, and advocacy work for people like NCADP a considerable number of those living on Death Row don't get to work it out until they get an appeal in the second or third circuit and they've been sentenced to death. Their life is over. This is an extreme example of course, but these are the condemned in more than one meaning of the word.
Expecting someone to walk away from abuse or an abuser to just suddenly stop abusing someone is about as realistic as expecting a hardened crack addict to throw away the crack pipe and take up jigsaw puzzles. It's never going to happen.
Abuse on either side is a process, often a long one. It's getting lost in the middle of the night deep in South Central LA, in the middle of the Bronx, among the concrete blocks of Stockwell South London, or worse still, wandering eastwards out of Glasgow city centre. You haven't got a clue where you're going, you don't know where you are, there's danger all around you, you're looking for a friendly face but all you see is hostility, mistrust, suspicion. You got to take risks, every so often you take a wrong turn, you come face to face with someone and you just hope you're going to get out alive. Nothing feels as good as crossing that street which takes you out of the district. You know where it is now, you remember, and it's your choice whether you go back or not.
Was I an abuser? Yes.. in my former unenlightened self I was. I was never aggressive, despite having a deep and burning resentment deep inside me, a resentment that was caustic, scalding, seething, anger at people and a world which could only accept me as someone I truly wasn't and who was so quick to turn on me when I chose to reveal my true self. I was passive aggressive, I would rant, I would manipulate, but worse..
I never got dates for the way I looked, I was awkward, I got dates and into relationships for who i was, my personality, I would fascinate, mesmerize, charm, I would set the trap, everyone was hooked, and right at that penultimate moment I would turn and leave. I've been stalked, and caused mental illness for one previous girlfriend.
But there's a happy ending.. all round.. I've been myself for some years.. Karma has kicked in, and I have embraced my Karma. But you know, I discovered Buddhism and BDSM when I was 17, and by chance I discovered theatre several years later.. the path towards healing myself through others was set right from the start. I just had to quit pretending and deceiving people.
Yes folks, the first five years of my artistic career was brilliant, but it was based on bullshit, lies, deception. I was living in denial, living a lie, wrongfooting everyone, but I had to do this to prove myself right and other people wrong. July 2000 to July 2002 this is the defining period of my life, my whole life. If ever there was one day which transformed my life, it was 9/11. But this was all down to my Domme at the time.
Lateralist1 makes a telling point when he writes 'The trick is to find someone who will give you what you need without having to resort to abuse. Willingly and openly.'
I've turned to pay forward as a philosophy on life, only it isn't really pay forward.. it's also pay back.
I'm found on the front line, there among the trenches, dodging the bullets, picking out the wounded and the dying.
At the moment I'm fighting to come off welfare.. and here I mean literally fighting. I have a small but growing fringe theatre in London based in a pub behind Battersea Power Station. It's not just a fringe theatre, it's also about to become a registered charity, the first and only charity in the UK working to eliminate social stigma through creativity, theatre workshops and bringing people together. I'm busy working flat out to build a repertoire and to develop projects.. most of the homeless charities want to get involved, there's now three local authorities in London interested. It's taking people who've been excluded from society, homeless people, and so on. The amount of funding promised far exceeds the limit laid out by the UK Charities Commission. The authorities have been trying to harrass me into a job, which I've tried to find, without success... gender issues, no recent employment history, I'm over 40.. I've gone back onto sickness, basically so I can focus on the theatre.. Whether it's welfare for unemployment or for sickness it's still welfare..Not much money, I'm the starving artist, but I don't give two monkey's.. I'm tired of struggling, of fighting, of battling, I want my independence back, I want off welfare, I want to just chill, enjoy life, wake up and not have to face some drama or crisis.. Most of my life has been some sort of struggle, crisis, drama.
But it's okay.. I got one play already prepared, the second play 'Switch', that short drama about BDSM is ready to be put together.. tomorrow I start arranging dates for performances.. As it opens I start taking stigatized people into theatre..I take on four new actors, one is a convicted wife-beater, twenty years on crack, and together with two others long term alcohol issues. I have to go to court for one of them and try and help him so he doesn't go to prison.
Talk about it all you like.. but if there's no action and no achievement the words are all rather pointless. Personally I find that teaching by example is far better than preaching.. Knowing and planning is only half way.. It's like staring at a fire with an extinguisher in your hand.. Someone somewhere has got to strike that knob and put the fire out. Not addressing anyone in particular here, but change only comes from awarness and actions.
I'm developing a relationship with a Domme who's come out of an abusive marriage.. these are the relationships I form.. I'm not trying to play Jesus here, not doing a do-gooder act.. Just being realistic. Most people come across the gender issue and walk away. They don't want to know. 'Do you have a dick or a pussy?' This is the most important question. Who I am as a person rarely comes into it.
But then again there have been moments of kindness from some truly wonderful people None of the theatres in Europe are bothered about my gender issues, the play has a different name on it, but it's the same play, the same words. Nobody in the theatre or whoever deals with the theatre is bothered.
I'm not afraid of abuse. I took a lot in my childhood, I've taken a lot in life.. I know I can face a Domme and no matter how bad she rages, how furious she gets, or whatever she can dish out I can stand there and take it, and not turn and flee, and not run and hide. I can be with a Domme at her most weakest, her most vulnerable, and not take advantage, and only she and I will know those moments. She isn't going to change me, she isn't going to destroy me..
But this isn't 'cling no matter what', nor is it 'put up with anything'.. It's trade, it's something for something.. In becoming part of her life she becomes part of my life, all of my life, including the stigma, my issues, and she does the one thing I really need.. she takes the focus away from me.. Yes it is co-dependency, but relationships are all about give and take, about compromise, about risks and about giving someone chances.
i want those demons, I want all that frustration, all that anger, resentment, all that guilt, regret, sorrow, that rage, and all the tears, I want to hear those sobs and feel those tears running down my neck like rainwater. I want it all to come out, out into the open, through me as the channel, the conduit, to the point where there is nothing left to come out.. and all what has burdened that soul for years is finally released.
One thing I refuse and that is to become a victim, either through my own actions or through someone else.
I would only become a victim if that person didn't want the changes and didn't want to work towards facing up to and overcoming their issues. You can only overcome certain issues on your own.. However there's many issues, and most of them connected with abuse, where you can't. You very often need the one thing not many people are prepared to give you - support, emotional support, acceptance, friendship and feelings without conditions.
This is why I had some doubt in the beginning over 'real chemistry' and 'real co9nnection'.. This isn't being able to get on with someone or sharing lots of interests.
How do you know if you've got a 'real connection' or 'real chemistry'?
Okay, hand on heart time here. That person you share your bed with and share your life with. Let's assume their whole life falls apart, it shattters into tiny little pieces. They lose everything, and I mean everything. They are devastated.
Could you stay with that person, and no matter what, no matter how long, no matter how much it costs, or what you have to go through, could you stay with that person and be with them and help them rebuild their life and restore it completely, and still feel the same about them?
If your answer is yes, then in my opinion you have 'real chemistry' and 'real connection'.
And what could really be any more important than that? Is there anything?
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