Mea Culpa

Egads, trauma tapes can be stubborn.

It's all the same junk, stuck on a convoluted loop. Coming back around again and again. Each time like a child dressed in a different ill-fitting and unconvincing costume pieced together from a box of tattered hand-me-downs, the garish cast-offs from a community theater production, and grandmother's old costume jewelry.

I'm a domestic violence survivor.

The moment I try to claim the identity, even in the privacy of my own thoughts, in the quiet of my own healing process, it starts with a condescending scoff.

Who am I, claiming to have survived domestic violence? Surely I don't even know what that means.

I had no right to be afraid of him when he came at me in anger. He was only a foot taller than me and he only ever punched the walls. He'd told me a dozen times he'd never hit me. Didn't I know? Didn't I understand he was a good man?

It was my fault. I made him angry in the first place. I made him angrier when I was afraid of his anger. Clearly, I had no right to feel that fear. He'd never hit me. He already told me that. Why couldn't I get it? I must have been too stupid.

It was my fault because I'm damaged from my childhood. He shouldn't be responsible for my damage - it's mine, after all. I should have taken care of it myself, before he met me, before he had to put up with it, before he had to put up with me. He should be able to have his authentic emotional experience. He shouldn't have to sensor himself for me. I need to be responsible for my own emotional reactions.

But somehow I'm also responsible for having made him angry. And then angrier. I was supposed to pretend that I wasn't afraid because I already knew my fear made things worse. It was my fault. Didn't I know? If I didn't duck, he wouldn't swing.

It was my fault. I was supposed to always show him my true emotions, as long as they were the emotions I was supposed to be having. How could he know how to respond lovingly to me if I wasn't totally vulnerable? If I wasn't showing him how I was feeling? If I wasn't feeling the way I was supposed to. If I was too stupid to figure out how I was supposed to be feeling in order to earn his sympathy.

I should have known what to say to make him feel better. If I was better, smarter, more compassionate and understanding, more worthy of love and kindness, then surely I'd never say anything that made it worse. And if I hadn't said something that made it worse, he wouldn't have to slam doors and kick walls. If I'd just managed his feelings like I was supposed to, he wouldn't have to drive recklessly while I sit frozen, helpless in the front seat. I wouldn't have to hold my voice steady despite my dry mouth when I ask him to slow down. And besides, that's a favor I don't deserve after I've failed to fix his anxiety and anger.

Come on. It wasn't that bad. He told me he'd never hit me, and he didn't. So many other people have it so much worse. That's not real violence. That's not real abuse. Other people experience real violence and abuse. I just experience what I deserve.

The Blame Game, Round 427

Last night, a man touched me without asking first. It was fairly innocent in the grand scheme of things, and I took it in stride.

But the way that my "no" stuck in my throat stoked the coals on a fire I thought I'd put out.

I have had a few realizations as I've unpacked the thoughts and emotions that have come up.

First, despite all of the personal growth work I've done since the disastrous end of my most recent mistake relationship, it would be unfair to expect myself to have improved my boundary setting skills in the interim simply because improving at anything requires practice. Practicing setting boundaries requires having connects or relationships in which boundaries need to be set, and I've spent the last seven months or so tucked safely away from the world in my safe and solitary cave. I haven't had the opportunity to hone my skills. Only now as I am reemerging will I have the opportunity to stretch and strengthen those muscles.

Second, I realized that I've been misidentifying a really sly, nasty voice in my head.

It started when I thought to myself, literally word for word, "Well, I *was* wearing a really short miniskirt."

Which was immediately followed by the thought, "Wow, hello there internalized misogyny! You are quite the stubborn stain on my subconscious."

Which was later followed by the realization that the voice that suggested that I was responsible for this man touching me in a way that made me feel uncomfortable and that I didn't consent to because I was wearing something provocative sounded *an awful lot* like the voice that is constantly telling me that ALL of my experiences of abuse or consent violation are, for some reason or another, my fault.

No matter how many layers I peel back and no matter how many times I feel like I get to a good place in my recovery process, this is the voice that is always there in the back of my mind to whisper, "You can lie to *them* all you want..." (I'm not sure who "they" are... My friends? The general public? The other parts of my own mind?) "... but no matter how many of them you convince, I know the truth and so do you. It IS actually your fault. You ARE to blame, and deep down, you *know* it."

In some semiconscious way, I had believed that voice was the voice of an inner knowing that I had yet to be able to recognize and integrate. And while I believe in taking responsibility for my own emotions (clearly far beyond what would be healthy), I'm realizing that voice has nothing to do with the part of me that wants to be radically self-responsible. That voice is internalized misogyny, and while I don't imagine it will quiet down any time soon, I refuse to allow it to hide under the auspices of legitimacy or nobility.

I'm calling you out internalized misogyny. You're wrong and I'm not listening to you anymore.

The Blame Game

CW: domestic violence, abuse, consent violation

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Sometimes I wish he would have had the decency to just hit me.

Everyone can agree it's abuse when he hits you, and everyone agrees that it's not your fault. I tell myself that would have made the abuse easy to see. The black eye, the busted lip - they say, with unequivocal conviction, This is not okay.

And then I feel ashamed.

I feel ashamed because there are so many women who wish he would stop hitting them. For them, it's not as easy to see. Or it is, but they don't have a way out. Or they think they don't have a way out. I know how all of those feel, so I should* just be grateful that I didn't have it worse. 

... Right?

I feel ashamed because the following is a list of some of the times it should* have been clear that the relationship was at least prodigiously unhealthy if not plainly abusive (as I've come to recognize in the time since it ended through a whole lot of therapy and research).

- When he cheated on me. While I was unexpectedly expecting with the world's worst "morning" sickness all day every day. I was also studying for final exams that weekend. During the "weed out" term of my grad school program. Right before Christmas. Then when he excused himself (i.e. implied it was my fault) because I walked out on him during an argument (to go to class, which I was late for).
- When he guilted, manipulated, and straight up coerced me into an open relationship that I told him time and again that I didn't want.
- When he drove around in a reckless rage while I cowered in the passenger seat. Because I said something that upset him (i.e. the reckless endangerment, like everything else, was my fault). When I worked up the courage to ask him to drive more carefully, and he didn't.
- When a particularly nasty fight ended in him slamming the car door so hard in my face that it rocked the whole car. He left and walked home. I was so afraid of him that I called a neighbor on my drive back and asked for a place to stay for a while. Just so I wouldn't be there alone when he got back.
- All the times he was so angry that he was slamming doors and... punching walls? Kicking walls? I'm not sure; I was usually hiding in the closet. When I texted my best friend from the closet to check if I was just overreacting because of previous trauma.
- When he was uncomfortable with me being nude with a bunch of gay men in a sweat lodge prayer ceremony in the woods, but "couldn't understand" why I would be uncomfortable with him not using protection with the other woman he was seeing (even though she was with three other people, all of whom I'd never met) and attempted to coerce me into agreeing that it was fine.
- When he called me "a monster" and told me it was my fault that he'd lied to me because I was "impossible to talk to."
- When he refused to hear my No the first time, or the fifth time, or any time. When I stopped saying No because I finally realized it wasn't an acceptable answer, and he accepted that as consent.

This is far from an exhaustive list, but I think I've made my point.

In hindsight, it would seem that there were more than enough glaringly obvious signs that were shouting THIS IS NOT OKAY!

It should* have been clear as day. I shouldn't* have needed him to hit me.

I spent months walking around thinking that if the people around me could see my emotional body, I'd be completely covered in cuts and bruises. How is that in any way unclear?

But... I loved him. (In my head, I say this with the jaded inflection of a villain mocking the fallen heroine after "true love" brings her to defeat and disgrace.)

But I did. I loved him. So I excused him. I took the blame. Over and over again. On the rare occasion that he hadn't been the one who accused me in the first place, he was still happy to let me have it. I was understanding and compassionate. I was terrified and browbeaten. I was waiting and waiting for things to settle down, praying they would go back to the way they were Before. And there were little tastes of that lost sweetness - just enough to keep me hopeful. To keep me blind. To keep me stupid.

I have a lot of trouble keeping my balance on the tightrope between empowerment and self-blame.

I know I've taken too much responsibility in many situations and relationships, not the least of which being the abusive ones. If only I'd taken responsibility for taking too much responsibility...

I think that if I'd seen what seems so obvious now, I could have saved myself a lot of pain. Maybe if I'd caught it early, I wouldn't be losing ... investing ... losing so much of my life - all the energy, the precious time, my physical health, and so much money - trying to recover.

I don't know how to reconcile my determination to never let this happen again with the fact that it happened. If I can heal to the point where I can't be abused again, it means that if I had healed enough before, then he wouldn't have been able to abuse me. It means I was abusable. It quickly degenerates into my fault.

I find that analogies are helpful in my process. Seems reasonable, as humans have been using stories and symbols to make sense out of their world since time immemorial.

So, for now, I see myself as a featherless phoenix. I went through the flames of an intense experience of initiation. I have been resting in the ashes - learning, healing, growing. Searching for meaning, for understanding. Taking inventory of what survived the blaze, what was destroyed, and what has been transmuted into something entirely new and unknown. My new self taking form.

Now I'm rising from those ashes. I feel small, fragile. Flightless. I suspect that in time I will discover my power. My wings will grow feathers, because that's what wings do.

I believe that when I come into my power, I'll have compassion for my previous form. I imagine myself throwing back my feathered head, a musical laugh becoming phoenix song.

How could she possibly have expected to fly before? It was the fire that gave her wings.



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* I fully recognize that the shoulding is unhelpful, but it's the voice in my head and I am committed to accurately recounting my process. I'm choosing to give space to all my parts and pieces, regardless of my judgments about them. I'm getting better at listening to the parts that don't serve me with an ear to hear the wisdom and an ear to hear the bullshit, and at discerning which is which.

Brave

When I share deeply about my healing journey around abuse and trauma, I've had a lot of people respond

"You're so brave!"

But I don't feel brave.

Maybe they are just being encouraging. Maybe they see something I don't. I know for sure that it comes from a loving and compassionate place, and I appreciate that.

Yet

On my good days, I feel... neutral. Kind of like that Lion King quote...

(Mufasa is the man, btw. Or, I guess, the lion.)

Anyway -- I'm only "brave" because I feel like I have to be.

Statistically speaking, those of us who have been abused and traumatized previously are at the most at risk for further abuse and trauma. I don't want to be a statistic. I don't want to spend the rest of my life with people who use me, abuse me, and discard me when they are done. Or, only slightly better, defending myself from those people by being alone forever.

Which means on my bad days, I'm pursuing healing out of the fear that if I don't, I'll never be safe or healthy or truly loved.

Which doesn't seem brave to me. It seems more... hmm, I think the word I'm looking for is "fucked up". On so many levels.

It's fucked up because it shouldn't be my responsibility to prevent people who say they love me from abusing me.

It's fucked up because there is some implication that if I can heal to the point where I can prevent my own abuse, then my abuse (or at least the abuse I've encountered since adulthood) is somehow my fault for not having reached that level of healing yet. (I know, I know. It's never the victim's fault. I have that on repeat in my head every day, and I haven't figured out how to reconcile these things yet. This internal struggle will likely be the topic of a separate blog.)

It's fucked up because I am running away from further abuse and trauma instead of towards something positive.

It's fucked up because everyone should have the right to feel safe without the prerequisite of decades of therapy and personal growth work. No one should have to worry about being abused, especially people who've already been hurt.

It's fucked up because my physical health has taken an incredible toll due to the emotional stress and damage. I feel so much pressure to get to a healthy place emotionally or my physical health will prevent me from doing what I need to do to take care of my basic needs (i.e. work) much less live the full and rich life that I want for myself. So again, coming from fear.

It's fucked up because it's yet another manifestation of the imperialist capitalist white-supremacist patriarchy, because I know that I better get my shit together because "healing" will not make me a productive and worthy member of society and it's my fault anyway for being a frail woman (and before, a frightened girl-child) so I should apologize for taking up too much space with all my damage and get back to taking care of the men who abuse me because it could have been so much worse and don't I understand what they have been through?!

But these things only chase each other around in my head on my bad days.

I have good days
Where I see where I'm headed
Where I can appreciate that the silver linings of having my health tank -
     I am forced to live in deep accordance with my values
     I am forced to live in a way that will (eventually) facilitate a long and healthy life

I have good days
Where the lessons from the journey feel useful
Where the journey itself feels meaningful

The light is still returning
A few minutes at a time

But I still can't own the word "brave." Maybe someday I will see it clearly in hindsight, but not yet.

I can make you say whatever I want you to

One of the most helpful insights I've had in this healing journey was the moment I realized that, when I find myself arguing with my abuser in my head, I can make him say whatever I want.

Because I do find myself arguing with him in my head. A great deal more frequently than I'd really like to, honestly. It's always the same - I'm always trying to convince him it wasn't my fault. Mostly because I don't seem to really believe it myself. Well, maybe I do on the surface, but some days I feel like I could spend the rest of my life staring into the mirror, telling myself it wasn't my fault, and maybe - if I lived another hundred years - I'd actually feel it in the marrow of my bones. But that could be another entry entirely.

Right now I want to discuss a revelation of nearly miraculous proportions - the person I argue with in my head isn't actually my real abuser. I can make him say whatever I want or need to hear. Whatever outlandish, ridiculous things that he would never say in real life - I can make him say it in my head.

Like,

"You're right."

And

"You didn't deserve that."

And

"I'm sorry."

In my head, I'm the one in control. It took me a while to realize, because, well, that's the nature of abuse I suppose. But it has probably been the single most healing practice that I've discovered for myself.

So when I find myself chopping vegetables with unnecessary vehemence, thinking

You lied to me! You manipulated me! You used the most beautiful parts of me and the most broken parts of me to get what you wanted, and you didn't care at all what it cost me...

Instead of his usual bullshit, he replies, "You're right. I'm sorry."

And suddenly, the argument is over. There's so much more space for other thoughts and feelings. It feels like a fog lifting in my mind. It's so clear, so palpable. I immediately feel lighter in my body.

It's a practice. Like any practice, I do it over and over again. Like in mediation, when the thoughts come and go like clouds floating through a clear blue sky.

You hurt me, and then you convinced me it was my own fault. "You're right. I'm sorry."
You took advantage of me when I made myself vulnerable. "You're right. I'm sorry."
You abandoned me when I needed you the most. "You're right. I'm sorry."
Your words said one thing but your actions said the opposite. "You're right. I'm sorry."

Sometimes he adds how it really wasn't my fault, despite what he said before. How he wishes he could go back and make it right. How I was the best thing that ever happened to him and he was a fool to destroy what we had and he wishes everyday he could have me back. (That last one is really just to rebuild some of my shattered self esteem, not because I would actually ever want him back.)

But mostly "You're right. I'm sorry" is all I need to move on in that moment.

And those moments, when I find myself locked in those arguments, they wax and wane. Some days are filled with returning to the practice. Other times I notice with delight that it's been a couple days since he intruded into my inner dialogue.

The morning after the winter solstice last month, I woke up with these words on my lips -

The light is returning.

And it truly is. Just like the sun, a few minutes each day. Even on the cloudy days when I can't see it or feel its warmth. Even after it sets for the day, I can rest knowing it will rise a few minutes earlier in the morning.

So it is with me as well. Even on the bad days, I can see that the long arc of my journey is toward healing, and that is what this blog is about.