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julietsierra -> RE: Subtle Abuse (12/28/2008 5:22:45 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Darcyandthedark
Hello Juliet - sorry if this rambly - I had a rather late night (in a good way!) and my heads not quite awake.
Maybe 'forget' is the wrong word. I don't for a moment want to lump everyone into the same catagory kind of thing because that would be me lumped in there as well. Generalisations suck. It's more a case of becoming so focused on one issue, another get's pushed back.
The common theme I often see (not just boards but everywhere) is that abuse has levels. It doesn;t and it is subjective and if I wanted to - I could run off the list of past abuse issues I have encountered in my life. But I don't because it's not constructive to others. Instead I focus on the positive. People will get abused and there is nothing I can do to save anyone, but you(generic) constantly see people trying to save others by using their past as an example.
And then you get the 'but I am all better and new and improved now' - when they clearly are not because they keep repeating the same pattern. But that is another thread entirely and one I have hummed and contemplated posting for a few weeks now but have the concern it will turn into something unpleasent.
Your post was awesome juliet, and as always your posts rock and are consistant and I cannot do anything but admire your words(as usual) and I really hope I made some sort of sense and didn't come across to you like a generalisation general is general land because there are abuse victims who don't play on their past and who don't fall for the same ole-same ole again. They do get to the point where they break that 'pattern'. And they are always the ones who don't profess to be new and shiny. or have learnt or have become *insertwhateverhere*.
They are just always there with an unconditional, outstretched hand, regardless of who takes it.
the.dark.
Thank you for the compliment dark. That was very kind. As I sat here reading your post, I realized that 'levels' are what kept me in the situation I was in. I'd look at the shows on television (Burning Bed, that Julia Roberts movie that I can't recall the name of right now) and think "that's not me. It's not that bad around here." and I'd find good things about my husband and I'd stay. It took a long time for me to understand that just because he wasn't contemplating murder (that I knew of), didn't mean I wasn't being abused. It took a LOT of contact with some abuse groups (where I did as most people do, drop in, go back, drop in, go back) where I learned that other people's stories, while different from mine were so starkly similar that I started to recognize how we could be different and still all alike. It didn't matter whether the abuser was male or female. It didn't matter whether the victim was educated or not. It didn't matter the degrees of the abuse. ALL of our stories, ALL of our patterns were so strikingly similar that it was easy to make generalizations. In fact, for me, those stories, those generalizations helped me get out.
And now that I'm out, the generalizations still come easily. However, that doesn't mean there aren't lessons to be learned. Abuse - the propensity to abuse is hereditary - not in a biological sense, but definitely what happens in one generation typically (not always, but often enough to be noticed) happens in the next generation and so on and so on, until and unless the pattern is broken.
The problem with breaking the pattern is that if the victim is getting out with children, he or she then has to be healthy enough - or strong enough to put aside his or her damage in order to help the younger members of the family grow up in ways that will help them escape this cycle. In my mind, because I had children when I left, I continue working to escape, because the escape won't be complete until my children grow up knowing that abuse is wrong and having the skills to be able to make a choice to not abuse and then live by it.
I'm going somewhere with this...
Ok.. bright, shiny, new...
One of the things that happened to me when I left is that EVERYTHING seemed so fresh, so new. I would have been (and probably was) one of those who were claiming "it used to be all horrible and now, I'm BETTER!!" because you see, I was. I was better than I was while living in the situation I was in. However, at the end of my first year, I looked back and realized only then, how damaged I was and how far in a year I'd come. Each year after that, I could see improvements until a few years out, I was able to see that I wasn't so much "all better now" as I was simply "better than I was." It took a few years after that to realize that whether I liked it or not, I was and probably in some way shape or form, always be a work in progress.
I stayed in my marriage for 18 years. I wasn't going to get "all better" in 1 or 2 or even 3 years. It's been 10 now. I have one son who just graduated from college. I'm proud of how he's turned out, but at 24 years old, he steers clear of relationships because he's afraid of being like his father. He was the most damaged after me. I have a daughter who is 21. She is developmentally delayed and will always be with me. We are a team. She has a boyfriend who she's proud to say "kissed my cheek." She seems ok, but is reluctant to go visit her father even though she loves him dearly. And I have a son who is a sophomore in high school. He's the one I worry about the most. His temper is hot; his control of it is well, teenager-ish. But he has a girlfriend and because of this, while maintaining as much of his privacy as possible, I am more involved than I'd like. But thankfully, he trusts me because I'm his sounding board when things get tough. So far, we've been able to take the difficulties of teen romances and turn them into actual learning experiences so that he's learned to take a walk, not yell but talk things out with her and set boundaries that they both can live with. I do very little rule making. I do support his positive actions and we talk about how he could have better handled the not so positive ones. (Thankfully, her mother is doing the same thing on the other end). The reason I tell about these kids and their progress is because they learned how to become more whole precisely by talking amongst themselves of their experiences and learning from the past. My youngest was 5 when we left. He hadn't had the "joy" of experiencing much of his father's rage, but even so, at 5 he too was so filled with rage that if he'd seen a psychologist at that time, he'd probably been labeled emotionally impaired. He learned about his father's anger and how to navigate through it from his brother. So when it showed up in his life, he was as prepared as he could be for it, and that experience told him a lot of how he did not want to be. He learned about "using his words" from me and we instituted a no hitting rule in the house. Consequently, from the age of 5 on, he never experienced the spankings that other people come to think of as a normal part of childhood. I HAD to separate discipline from hitting cause no one in my house could tell the difference. It helped us all immensely because we ALL had to find other ways through anger and misbehavior ways to learn lessons. So far, so good.
The point of all this is that in my efforts to do right by them, the much deeper work I still have left to do has had to take a back seat. And I work on me as I can.
But I DO understand the whole "bright shiny new me" mentality that you talk about, cause when you're finally out, it is ALL bright and shiny and new. It just takes a few years to recognize that there are some dark spots there that need to be worked on, and depending on the person's fortitude, ability to look within, and frankly, their other responsibilities, the person will either eventually get them ironed out or, more tragically, never work them out at all.
And this is getting long - I'm sorry.
But the reason so many of us trying to "save" others by using our past is that many of us recognize that sometimes, finding someone else's experiences that mirror our own, can give insights into problems we couldn't see our way through. I know it becomes tedious and downright depressing to read post after post on this, but for some people, that's exactly what they need to see - that they are NOT alone. That they DON'T have to live the rest of their lives that way and yes, maybe that there's even the possibility of something bright and shiney out there for them as well.
Does that make sense?
Oh.. .and I'm so glad you had such a great time last night... even if you do pay for it this morning.
juliet
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