This post is going to cover themes of sexual and domestic abuse in particular of the emotional kind, and includes personal experiences. It discusses whether or not these experiences should be diminished because they fall within a relationship we ‘choose’ to be in. Warning - this is going to be deep!
OK, so why am I writing this?
So, to begin with, let me say:
I am a feminist! I’ve always been a feminist! However, did I always know to call myself one? No. Why? Because it’s not been a word that was hugely flung about really, and if it was, then not in a nice way. Not that this has changed much if we are honest.
However, it appears that in this debate there is no middle ground. There is no grey area. It’s as simple as that, either you are a feminist, and therefore for equal rights, for treating every human as a human first, and not as female, transgender, gay etc. or you are a misogynistic ass. Is this language too strong? No, I don’t think so. It’s past time that we stop to add fluff so as not to offend.
Why do I start my post thus? Because the topic of this post revolves around harassment, assault and abuse. Oftentimes, when we conjure images of the victims they consist of weak and defenceless women. Just as it appears less likely that a strong woman (both physically and/or mentally) is believed when she claims an assault.
But it can, and does, happen to anyone, strong or not. Strength of any kind is seldom a shield against abuse. Alas when in the victims shoes sometimes there is that ugly question: “can I still call myself a feminist while being in, or having been in, an abusive relationship?” Well yes!
Do you believe in equal rights? Do you believe every woman should be treated as a human being rather than a second-class derivative thereof? Then yes, you are a feminist. Regardless of personal circumstances in your past, or present, if you believe in those values you are still a feminist.
We do not choose to be in abusive relationships. It’s not like someone advertising pie and we scream “yes, I will have some of that please”. Getting caught in a trap does not diminish you as a human being nor invalidate the values you hold dear. Being shackled, enslaved, imprisoned or curtailed, in any way, does not mean you do not believe in a better world.
So where did this post come from? The hashtag phenomenon #MeToo that went viral over the last few weeks got me thinking.
It got me thinking of all the crap we women go through and how normalised most of it is. Oh wheesht over there, I know the Y-chromosome also has its own burden to carry under the patriarchy, but sorry to say, this post is not about you. Actually, this post is not even strictly about us fe-males. The psychology behind #MeToo applies to all genders. Saying that, I am writing from a female perspective with examples of women - including myself.
As I said the #MeToo tag has got me thinking.
Sexual harassment and assault
What springs to mind? Cat calling, grabbing bums and breasts, rape jokes, abusive language, slut shaming, rape. The list is endless but these are the first things I think of. What also springs to mind first is streets, public places/transport, workplace, bars, a night out, walking home alone.
Harassment.
Assault.
Words, that at least to me, usually first (but not only) indicate a mostly unknown, outside force inflicting. The stranger on the street cat calling, the unknown guy at the bar groping one’s bum, the work college making sexist comments, the boss trying it on with an employee, a stranger raping a woman in a dark alley, the guy on the bus jerking off next to you, the first date wanting more than one is willing to give.
Harassment and assault are strong but can be blurry terms.
Harassment is a harsh word for cat calling, right? “Cat calling really is a compliment, just guys being guys, you can’t call that harassment”. “Next you gonna say that when uncle Tom slaps your bum and says be a good lass and go to the kitchen and fetch me a sandwich it’s sexism too”. These are examples of forms of harassment that have been so normalised that most women will dismiss them as normal, and wouldn’t even consider them to fall under this title ‘harassment’. After all what is cat calling compared to rape! We could choose to pretend not to listen, we could walk on the other side of the road, we could take the longer, but busier way home.
Assault now that’s bad stuff, that’s physical violence and everything. Rape sure falls under that category. Although maybe we should give it a special status? You know because it’s so bad and you don’t want to indicate that someone who gropes your bum unasked would also do THAT to you, can’t have that so. Let’s have a special category, right? But groping bums and breasts certainly falls into the category of assault too.
But the date that slides his hand up the inside of your thigh, even though you gently but firmly pushed it away twice already? The friend of a friend that always slides his hands lower on your back, pretty much fondling your bum as he greets you with a hug? (Because that’s what friends do right, even friends of friends?) The college guy that, when you show him something on the computer, always leans over just so that his nose and mouth are so near your throat that you can feel his breath? The boyfriend that makes you feel that sex is your duty in a relationship? Now those are just women being a bit skittish right? It’s just guys not thinking about proximity or what they say, maybe? Women being prudish? We women folk are just too nervous about harmless stuff, right? Surely none of this is assault!
Violation of personal space, making women cringe and shrink into themselves, women dreading encounters with people, with stress levels through the roof. None of that really counts right? Even though sexual assault covers all means of sexual, unwanted behavior. It means all forms of unconsented touching.
We have normalised things for too long. We have put them away as “boys will be boys” or “women are over sensitive”. The situation has gotten to the point where we now live in a rape culture. There is no other way of seeing it. It’s where we are as a society, and there is no point living in denial. It is an utterly sad, depressing statement to make, but closing our eyes to it will not make it go away. Collectively we have paved the way for it, and collectively we need to tear that path down, and undo the wrongs we did. From normalizing sexist behavior to ‘slut shaming’ and ‘stud praising’, to ‘victim blaming’ and ‘doubt casting’. We have to change, because we are all complicit in it. Women as much as men in many cases.
I have slut shamed. I have cast doubt. I have shut up when I should have spoken out. I have even victim blamed. Maybe not yesterday, maybe not in many years but I have been part of the conditioned zombies that we are. I have been brainwashed by society too, and been complicit, whether I knew it at the time or not. If you look closely at yourself there will be few of you who have escaped this brainwashing. But I have woken! I AM waking up!
I have just admitted that I have thought as society has taught me, I have also been on the receiving end of many forms of harassment, as surely many women have.
The #MeToo movement asked us for no specifics, it’s just asking us to, only once, acknowledging that we too, have experienced sexist behaviour in one of its forms at some point in our lives.
However, if we were asked to #MeToo every day, every time, we experience any kind of harassment, or assault, the internet would be permanently flooded with that particular hashtag if we all spoke out. Speaking out on specifics is not so easy.
But I am getting side tracked. I suspect I am not the only one when I say I could speak on this subject for hours, and fill page after page about it. But, I could save us all time by just suggesting you go and read some books that have already been written, maybe “Everyday Sexism” by Laura Bates, or “Girls will be Girls” by Emer O’Tool. I could also recommend many more classic writings on feminism and the problems the second-class citizens of this world have to face.
What I am really hoping to address in this post is the fact that we tend to think about harassment and assault in terms of external forces, that we happen upon, or more precisely that happen upon us. We rarely think about these issues in general terms, or about how they involve our nearest and dearest, about family, husbands/boyfriends and so on.
As mentioned, rape usually gets its separate box when it comes to assault. Objectively, and theoretically, rape could fall into the ‘assault’ category but even if you google it you find the label ‘assault’ often stops at attempted rape. After all, it can be reasoned, rape is rape, and therefore it makes its own, more horrific category. It needs a special, separate box. After all, as a society, we don’t want to put Jonny who tried to press you against the wall to ‘cop a feel’ in the same category with one of those perverts who actually rape.
We also tend to have a special box for ‘domestic violence’, which also contains ‘abusive relationships’. Surely they don’t really fall properly into the generic ‘harassment and assault’ box after all? It’s not neat and tidy that way. Again we are told these are special, different cases. We don’t want to confuse the stranger that just once cornered a girl to get that kiss he wanted with a wife beater, right? Just because a guy violated a random stranger in this way, would never mean that you couldn’t have a healthy, happy relationship with that guy, right? Well, the victims/survivors may feel differently about this.
When we look further at domestic violence, abusive relationships, and rape, we again think in angry, horrendous terms, of the beaten wife, the girl friend that fell down the stairs, the guy attacking a woman in the street. Stark, horrendous, gruesome. Bruising, crying women. Torn clothes are the images forming in our minds.
The thing with relationships
But what about rape in a marriage, or a relationship? What about emotional blackmail, emotional abuse, financial curtailment, threatening violence towards pets, children and parents? Where do these falls? Is that not harassment? Is that not abuse/assult?
Most of the time when we talk about assault and harassment we talk about something tangible, something that can be seen, something with physical evidence.
You could be having a cup of tea with your best friend, fiercely debating woman’s rights, or politics, and never know she lives in permanent terror of the night time ‘duties’ to her husband.
You could be seeing your friend and her boyfriend walking hand in hand, as you go to the movies, and never suspect that he’s threatened to hurt her family that day if she didn’t come with him.
You could be sitting with your aunt and her husband at dinner and never suspect that she is close to a break down as her husband keeps talking down to her, making herself doubt everything she does, everything she says.
You’d never suspect the cool outfit your friend is wearing on your night out is really 10 years old, or borrowed from her mum/sister because her husband/bf has not let her have money to buy new clothes in 3 years.
So where do these situations fall if we generalised it? Harassment? Assault? This stuff happens daily around us! And yet..
If we don’t see it, it doesn’t exist.
If we don’t hear about it all the time it’s not real.
The nitty gritty, raw horror we see and hear about, this we can categorise. To us, this is real. We can get outraged about it because it’s physical. But the less tangible, less obvious forms rarely get talked about. And thus, it is reasoned, it must just be a small sub category, less important, less prominent, hardly there really.
It’s a lot easier to talk about a random stranger grabbing your bum then talking about your bf/husband who you have been with for years. Part of this is the emotional baggage of self-blame and shame one has to work through before saying “actually, my husband beats me” or “my bf threatens my family so I can’t leave”. And that is over simplifying it still as the victim is stuck in though patterns and traps no outside can easily imagine.
We choose to live in blissful ignorance.
The signs are there, we are just very good at ignoring them.
“Surely my sister would tell me if she hasn’t got money to even buy clothes for herself or her children.”
“My uncle is an ass, but my aunt gives as good as she gets, it’s just how they are. My aunt is a strong-willed, women if she couldn’t take it she’d walk out.”
“I always talk about my sex-life with my bff surely she’d say if there was something wrong, I think she is just not that into sex.”
“He seems a bit of a jerk but they’ve been together for years now, she must love him, she’d leave if she didn’t surely.”
What about our imaginary sister mentioned above. Do we think
“She just doesn’t care as much about clothing as others” is what we say when he’s got, yet again, a new jacket and she still wears the one she patched up last year.
We might reason “I know they have money, she is just a bit tight”
We may say when she doesn't brag about her sex life “ She has always been a bit of a cold fish”.
Next might come “She used to laugh more, but people change, it’s probably work/kids etc.”, perhaps “She just doesn’t like to make decisions, even picking a restaurant seems impossible for her it’s just how she is”.
And then we have “They used to have a dog but I think it was too much work for her with the kids as well”
“They just have a bad spell in their relationship it’ll get better soon”
”They used to be so happy, ah well, everyone has ups and downs, she’ll be smiling again soon enough”.
On the other side you may find the imaginary sister thinking like this:
“Just put a brave face on and pretend all is just fine”
“You don’t wash your dirty laundry in public!”
“These are private problems that you should deal with yourself!”
“There is nothing others can do anyway, and it’s none of their business!”
“My friend can’t do anything about it, I shall not burden her with this”
“It will get better again, why worry my mum with this”
“It’s just a bad year it will get better!”
”Every relationship has its ups and downs!”
“It’s me, I seem to be frigid”
“I just don’t enjoy sex that much but that’s hardly his fault”
“Others have much less to get by on”
“I can’t belief I had a nervous breakdown in the office I must be stressed or it’s hormones”.
It pains me, but I have been both the one in denial when my friends and family were in trouble, and the one in denial when, I was myself, in trouble.
It is even harder to admit this has been more than once. Conditioning, decorum, politeness, downplaying, and minimising have brought us to that.
Let me make this clear, before I continue on, no man has ever laid a hand on me and/or physically forced me to do anything. Nor have I been hit, or have I ever witnessed such. I tell myself if any man had tried, he would not live to tell the tale, or at least regret it till his dying days. I do not know what it is like to cover bruises with make-up, to smile while my ribcage aches from the last beating. I pray to all entities that there are, that I will never know such. So, I also do not know what it takes to recover from such physical abuse and what scars it leaves on a mind.
But I do know self-doubt. I do know the feeling of permanently thinking I’m going crazy. I do know that feeling of no longer trusting your own judgement. I do know what it’s like to tumble down into the abyss thinking “jumping off a rooftop would be preferable to this”. I do know what it’s like to flinch when being touched. I do know how my inners shrink together into themselves at the mere thought of physical contact. I do know the feeling of being dirty in a way you can’t wash off. I do know the trap of emotional guilt that drags you down. I do know what it is like to have an addiction to a person that is bad for you. I do know the irrational fear for my loved ones because of threats made against them. I do know feeling small, and insignificant, and worthless.
I have both seen it, and lived it. All of it.
This stuff does not get talked about enough, and it happens far more often around us than we realise. So let’s open up this tin of worms, shall we? Get ready for the ride.
Unleash the kraken (or the worms)
I am a pretty open person, there is rarely a filter between the brain and mouth (much to the despair of some of my friends, I’m sure!) and if you ask me directly about something, or it comes up in conversation through whichever detour got us there, I will not beat around the bush. I will talk about my experiences, be you male or female, well known to me or a mere acquaintance. However, I rarely volunteer this information unasked. So, this post, as so often, is new territory for me.
I have now been truly, happily single for 3 years.
3 years in which I shut the door on all Y-chromosome carriers.
3 years to slowly get back to myself only to realise that I have a long way to go.
3 years just to notice that I’ve only been living from day to day, paddling in an ocean with no shore in sight.
However I can now say I have found my centre again. I have my balance, but it’s a fragile equilibrium.
These 3 years have given me some perspective, given me time to analyse my past, to dissect the stuff I’ve gone through in my past two relationships. I like to think I can step back from it and talk about it half way rationally now. I haven’t even had nightmares for over a year.
But let’s not start with the crap-heap that’s my past. Instead let us first consider the stuff I failed to see around me. As I am a prime example of both conditioning, and blissful ignorance, and through it, complaisant in the patriarchal oppression of those around me whom I’ve seen tumble. Let us make me the villain first, and then the victim.
Don't see, Don't hear, Don't speak
So where to start? Some things get just too normalised and we do not speak up. I think many of us may have witnessed similar to what I am about to relate, either in childhood or adolescence, and just taken it as ‘not ideal’ but normal. Being still in your teens also makes it harder to speak out to an adult even though you know you should. And as an adult, we hear our neighbours having shouting matches and banging doors. But, well, it’s none of our business what goes on behind closed doors right?
We see the mother of three struggle with her shopping bags, trying to rein in her kids at the same time, while the husband talks on the phone. Well she married him, her problem, isn't it?
We go to a relative’s home for dinner, or some sort of cultural festivity, and we see the women and girls are busy in the kitchen while the guys sit in the living room chatting and drinking. That’s just how it is, right?
We are at a friend’s home and help her tidy away the dishes while the husband reads the paper and her son plays on his phone. Normal wouldn't you agree?
As hard as it is to accept, this way of thinking makes us complacent in patriarchal oppression.
We might go as far as asking the neighbour if she is ok letting out a sigh of relief when she says “yes, I’m fine, thanks for asking.” We can now say to ourselves “well, I did ask I gave her the chance to say if something was wrong”
We may speak loudly about the disgrace of not helping one’s wife with the shopping while walking past the couple, because at least we voiced it.
We may say to the guys in the living room that it wouldn’t hurt them to lend a hand and that we are in the 21st century.
We may make a passive aggressive comment while helping our friend with the dishes.
And each time we think to ourselves “well I tried, I did my share, at least I said something”.
It’s not enough and we all know it.
Changing society starts at home, changing behavioural patterns starts with us. But look, I am getting side tracked again - I could generalise all day because it’s easier and because there are millions of examples to pick from. We are all way too familiar with this. I did promise to make myself the villain, so here we go.
So, there I was in my early teens, being dropped off at my aunts for a couple of weeks of my summer holidays. The patriarchy was alive and well here. Where both my uncle and his father where accustomed to be waited on hand and foot.
Having myself grown up in a household where my grand uncle did the cooking for all of us, and did his own household chores in his part of the house, and my mums husband helping when my mum cleaned upstairs, my aunts place was a strange household setup to me. When in this household, even the helpful males I was accustomed to, would just sit down and let the women do ‘women’s work’. My grand uncle may have made sarcastic remarks but he was old so who listens?
I loved my aunt and I loved the freedom I had to roam this backwaters farm land community. And because I loved my aunt I loved to help her around the house or in the kitchen. Food preparation and cleaning. These were not things my mum would find me doing at home by choice. What I did not love were the men of the household, or the way they treated my aunt. Even her mother in law, although suffering in the same way from patriarchal oppression, was talking down to her.
I wish I could give you some good verbal examples and describe the scene better for you, but I was a teenager and as such fully obsessed with myself and my own world. What I do remember, is my aunt giving snide remarks back to her husband or father-in-law, and me doing likewise. Taking a leaf out of my Grand Uncles book, I may have said a few choice words, here and there, to the male inhabitants of the household. Occasionally startling them into silence, or at least into the red faced, puffed out cheeks anger they could display so well. Although I do not remember specific verbal put downs or obvious signs of emotional abuse, I remember impressions, postures and feelings all too well.
I did not think about it much when I was a teen, but my aunt always looked a good 10 years older than she actually was. Between 40 hours at work, 3 kids, a household of 7, a huge old farm house with extensive gardens and the permanent verbal crap from my uncle and his father, and surely her husbands bedroom demands, I do not know how my aunt managed to hold herself together as long as she did.
Looking back on it her spiral into depression should have been seen a long way coming. But you know, you are just expected to cope. From ‘it’s your lot in life’ to ‘you married him’, to ‘you made your bed, now you have to sleep in it’ and so on.
My aunt was a lioness when it came to her work. She’d stand up to her boss and she was the elected voice of those she worked with, and she did give back at home verbally as good as she got. I certainly never saw her as weak, quite the contrary. She was outspoken with a great sense of right and wrong, standing up for those that couldn’t, and yet she’d still be at the bottom at her household’s hierarchy. Warrior women at work and slave at home. A brilliant mind gone to waste. Bound for university, she settled for her husband instead. Dark rings under her eyes and a look of tiredness always accompanied her.
I like to think I helped her a bit when I stayed with them but did I actually ever, in all our talks we shared late at night, ask her why she is still married to my uncle? Did I ever actually voice to her that I thought the way she is treated in her own household is wrong? Did I ever tell my mum how concerned I was about my aunt? Did I ever ask my mum why she thinks my aunt is still married? No I did not. We all saw how being in that place, her home, affected her and how over the years her unhappiness deepened. I do not know if my mum ever had those chats with my aunt that I did not. I am not privy to that. Knowing my mum, she will have said something, but she also would have expected my aunt to reach out by herself in return. It’s the ‘I’m happy to throw you the life line but you have to hold on in return’, not realising that the person just can’t.
That we should step in and tie the line around their waist and pull them out, because even reaching out is too much for them. We can see these things around us and still stubbornly say “well, if I was in her shoes I’d just leave”. Or “she knows she only has to call”. Or “if it was too much for her, she’d let me know”. Or “she would ask for help if she needed it”.
Without having walked in someone else's shoes we do not know how difficult it is to speak out. From the outside, it seems clear to us that if you are not treated well you get out. When something is too much, you ask for help. Surely no sane person would wait for the breaking point, wait until the planks crack and disintegrate before they get into the life boat. But the mind is a funny thing. The snares that are laid upon us are so invisible to others.
Breaking point
Hitting the ground after a long fall
Falling to pieces
It says it all and yet it can look so different from person to person. Breaking point can be the utter collapse into depression. It could be the turning on your husband, or yourself, with a knife. It could be the packing of your bags and taking a flight to the Caribbean. It can also just be standing at your friend’s doorstep with a suitcase in the middle of the night.
We all break differently, and not all of us manage to come up for air again once the last plank gives way under us. And then, even when we manage to get our heads above water again, the shore can be a long way off. Sometimes we can even float along on the water quite blissfully, but we don’t doubt the abyss remains straight under us.
Now this was just one example. My aunt did eventually break her chains, but she never really made it to shore after that… myself, as well as others, will always wonder what could have happened if we had spoken out more, what if we had just made her leave?
Maybe, when there is a 25-odd year difference between yourself and the person in need, it might make it harder to say something, but what about when it is your friend who is your own age? It should be easier then, right? Which brings me to my next example.
The friend in need
Just like myself, my friend managed to find herself in not one, but two abusive and toxic relationships.
Now let me give you some advice at this juncture, a wonderful warning sign is when the bf/husband hates the best friend. Been there on both sides of the equation.
My friend is a warrior women, and my personal Rock of Gibraltar. Outspoken, fierce, full of life, witty, sassy, overall amazing and yet I watched her light dim and almost diminish.
The first time we were but teens, and her bf dominated every single free second of her life. He would glare at me with utter hatred, which I choose to revel in whenever she left the room. She was besotted with him at the start, and I suppose he was a good-looking specimen and one must add and teenage hormones do run high. However, his possessiveness become extreme. Luckily this was before smart phones and portable internet devices otherwise I am sure he’d have monitored her vitals and bowl movements. In any case, I did speak my mind about him, but as we all know it is a person’s free will and their own the decision to stay with someone. Or is it?
Back then we never went into the psychology behind the dude’s behaviour because, hello? We were teens, and the guy was just a bit intense, right? However, she did get out eventually. Just to almost immediately fall for someone worse.
Thing is, you do not always see it straight off the bat. Men and women do not come with warning labels printed on their necks. There might be subtle signs, but unless you made a study of that person, those signs will slip you by, and you surely do not see them once you wear the rose tinted glasses of love or the red ones of lust. The red flashing light loses its significance when you can’t tell the colour.
I do not want to go into the details of the deprivation my friend suffered or describe to you how this vibrant lady became less and less herself. We didn’t exactly live door to door so for most of it how she managed, and lived through this I do not know. When I did see her, the emotional distance between her and her bf was quite obvious. I remember afternoons out visiting her mum, or once in a while treating ourselves to such luxury that is ice cream, just for her to say: “Don’t tell him about this”. Usually followed with either a “you know how he is”, “I don’t want an argument”, or “it’s easier this way”. These phrases were frequently used by my aunt, are used by my mother, and I have used similar as well.
BIG FUCKING HUGE WARNING SIGN HERE! If anyone tells you not to tell their spouse about something like visiting one’s mum, or going for coffee, things are not quite right in relationship happy-land! I have seen boyfriends and husbands spending cash on whatever stupid new toys even when I couldn’t recall the last time their spouses bought anything for themselves. BIG BLOODY WARNING SIGN!
In later years, as I struggled in my own relationship I also recall discussing sex avoidance techniques as well as the: “sometimes it’s easier to just let them use your body discussion”.
Yup, we’ve actually discussed this and still went on with it, not even blinking an eye lash. That’s how screwed up our brains become over time. Through guilt tripping, dependence, the illusion of loyalty, threats and so on. We find being disgusted with our own behaviour, with “consenting” to having our bodies used for someone else’s pleasure, more acceptable than dealing with the emotional and mental strain of “just” saying no. Why? Because by that stage we’ve said no (or a non-verbal equivalent thereof) a million times already and dealt with the repercussions a million times too many.
I think I did ask my friend many times why she is still with him, but I did let her feeble arguments sway me again, and again, just to let it be. It wouldn’t be right for the kids, it’s not all that bad, we have our up moments too you know, I’m just exaggerating I’m sure. IN WHICH EVER WAY YOU PUT IT - FORCING YOURSELF TO HAVE SEX WITH SOMEONE IS NEVER RIGHT! Do I need to say it? SUPER BIG BLOODY WARNING SIGN!
The thing is, despite all better judgement, we hope against hope that our partner will see the light and change, because their behaviour doesn’t just hurt us, it is obviously also a downward spiral for them. They are not happy either most of the time. We always hope it will get better and sometimes we see the glimpse of a behaviour change and latch onto it thinking “that’s it, he saw the light”. It might even be better for a month, or two, just to tumble down like a blown over card house. Sometimes having the bubble burst yet again is the wakeup call we need to come to our senses.
I am glad to say my friend is doing brilliantly now. I am not sure I’d call her fully recovered as mental scars run deep and true, but she is again the firecracker I knew.
Being on the receiving side
So, I am finished being the villain in my own story. I guess it’s my turn to be the victim now…
I could probably say all three of my longer term relationships share certain things in common, however I shall only visit the last two. Those two relationships lasted 7.5 years and 15 months. Almost 9 years of my life that I could have spent so much better.
Let me start by saying not all of those 9 years were bad. I mean all relationships have a honeymoon phase, right? And let me also say that I know by now, full and well, that both my Ex’s are not well men. Although having scarred me both mentally and emotionally so deep that I sometimes think it’ll never go away, I know they are not happy bunnies and actually do need help.
Will they ever realise that they do? Unlikely. I, at least, fled the cage they put me into. I may have had to chew through a limb or two, but I am free. They continue to live at the edge of the abyss, they continue tumbling into nothingness and may never break free. I just hope they will not take anyone else with them as they continue to fall.
Both relationships, although sharing things in common, were also vastly different and while one spiralled very slowly into emotional blackmail the other went into strong verbal and emotional abuse at rocket speed.
Now... I re-wrote this section several times, but I guess we do not need to go into details. It’s too easy to just sound bitter, or to make this all about the big bad wolf.
Spiraling down slowly
Let us start with those first 7.5 years… of course, not all of those years were bad. But let’s just say, despite appearances, we were never well suited for each other from the start. It only worked quite smoothly for a while because I was flexible enough to shape my life around his, AND THAT BY THE WAY, IS WRONG! You should NEVER ‘just fit’ around someone else. Especially as they will be oblivious to it, and once you can’t fit your life around theirs any more the changes that do occur will lead to the nice guy you started to date gradually disappearing.
There will have been signs all along the way, even before the downward spiral began. But that’s the thing, we miss the signs, regardless of how blatantly obvious they appear in retrospect.
So what signs did I miss? Emotional blackmail is what comes to mind first. Emotional blackmail, however is not necessarily a conscious choice, using obligation and guilt to archive their wants is often done without planning it and it starts gradually. As mentioned, I can’t ignore the fact we can also add his depression into the mix. Obviously it did not help, but it was not the root of the problem - that ran far deeper. When he started to realise that I would not give up having my own life, once my life no longer fitted neatly around his, the fragile bubble of illusion we’d both been living in, began to crack.
I had long made my peace with the journey of my life running on quite different tracks to his, only occasionally intersecting, perhaps stopping off in the same station as him for a while. He clearly had not. He clearly had refused to see that I had different needs from his. And he was not happy with the fact that he was not the centre of my universe.
May I just say you should never be the centre of someone’s universe, nor should you make someone yours! That’s how co-dependence is created and that’s not healthy! Usually leading to a lot of mental and emotional stress for at least one of the parties. Personally, I think in a relationship you should be equals. Your love and respect for your partner should neither make them a worshipped entity, nor should they be taken for granted. At all times you are both still your own beings and should have your own life outside your partners. If one of you is not cool with that, then something is not quite right in Happyville. Which is exactly where the problem was in this case (waves manically pointing at herself shouting: Look, look I did the thing I just told you not to do).
Falling into the dependence trap can be so easy. It starts with small adjustments and builds up from there. While we still ride the chemical wagon of attraction, where pheromones and hormones dictate how we think, it seems like no big deal.
It is.
So the downward spiral began with snide remarks about me spending too much time with my best friend. They were helping me build my business at the time, so a lot of our time together was not exactly filled with coffee and cake, and we’d always spend a few afternoons each week together because that’s what friends do!
Then he always wanted to know when I’d be home, even though he knew my working hours full well. Next he moved to making me feel guilty when I decided to go dancing once a fortnight. Just for context, we had both been regulars to this event, even before we began dating, the problem arose when he no longer wanted to go. I don’t know when it became the norm but he would completely blank my best friend even when she was in the same room with him.
These all seem small things, maybe, but they build up and the emotions that are created behind these small incidents build up too. The question of “when will you be home tonight” is not merely a question any more but is filled with the meaning “how long do you leave me alone again?”. The question of whether I spend the afternoon with my friend (an afternoon he was at work anyway) was not an enquiry of how my day was, but loaded with the meaning of “you are spending more time with her than me”.
The snide remarks became more and more loaded, telling me how I deserted him by not spending every night on the sofa. Every attempt of mine to get him out to meet after work for coffee, to go for a walk, to meet for lunch, went, of course, unnoticed. However, his going out when he wanted was totally different from me going out, when that happened he was ‘making an effort’. Everything I did, that did not involve him, or revolve around him, was laid out as being the bad girlfriend, of somehow not living up to expectation. I was not fulfilling my side of the bargain and every moment I did spend with him was spent ‘not being enough’.
When you know an accusation against you has no foundation you eventually become numb to them, but that does not mean they don’t leave their mark and fester. The constant guilt tripping grinds away on you. Even when you tell yourself “he is not well”, you do become resentful of the way you are being treated for having a life. At this stage I was working at least 60 hours a week, kept the house, played social secretary to my bf, and spent several evenings per week with him. Yes, I allowed myself one work related afternoon and even, once or twice a week to meet my friend, hardly excessive I’d say.
As the years progressed, so did his depression, but then so did his drinking. Although he was usually someone who avoids direct confrontation in a relationship, when he had too much to drink he could swing between getting extremely passive aggressive to sometimes outright telling me how much I sucked as a girlfriend. The mantra of “he is not well, he does not mean it” will only carry you so far. In response to this you yourself spiral into feeling more and more guilty for taking the joy in your own life. Meetings with friends got scheduled around his work hours so he would not see that I had a life. I can’t remember how often I’ve said the phrase “I better go home, he’ll be home soon and I should be there”, or “you better leave now, he should be home soon and I don’t want to have to deal with him being in a bad mood”. I spend more time crying on my friend’s sofa because it was all too much more than I care to remember. Such adjustments in my life became normal but the guilt-tripping and expected obligations obviously did not just stop there.
The self blame cycle
It is hard to explain, it could be argued that as I felt bad all the time I should have spoken up, or just left. It’s not that easy. Despite, or maybe because, you are being mentally screwed around your brain cycles through:
“But I love him” - although sometimes loved and loving (past and present) get mixed up at that stage
“He needs me, what would happen if I left him, will he cope?”
“Will he harm himself, will he drink himself into oblivion?”
“Am I just being selfish and was he right all along, am I just a bad girlfriend, am I a horrible person for having a social life while my bf deals with depression”
“He’s only got me I should be there for him, I can’t leave him”
“I’m sure this will get better, my suffering is nothing in comparison to his”
“I’m strong enough, I can help him through this because I love him."
And that brings us back to the first stage in the cycle.
In retrospect I can say that he has used his mental illness to guilt trip me further and create a sense of obligation that tied me to him for much longer than was obviously healthy for both of us. He only sought medical help after I had my own mental breakdown by the way. I seriously thought I should have been on the happy pills myself at that stage.
Once he did get prescription drugs he stopped his medication several times without telling me. He kept drinking even though he was told it would counteract his medication and even with all the help offered by me and his friends he just didn’t even try. I mean even not drinking could have helped so much.
Now knowing what went on in my brain, and previous mention of obligations, you may begin to grasp the next part of this story.
The sex obligation
One of the hardest parts of our relationship was the physical side of things. The guilt tripping he used in our relationship obviously did not stop with my social life, but went for the bedroom too. He creating the feeling of obligation, making clear that if I didn’t do this I clearly did not care for him.
As I said before, no one has ever laid a hand on me, or physically forced me to do anything I did not consent to, but coercion of a mental kind - now that is a different matter. If you are in a long term relationship being sexual with your partner is usually part of it. Now between the mental stress, my long hours and the constant guilt tripping it might not be so difficult to understand that this whole ‘desire’ thing was on the fritz. After all part of me utterly resented this man at this stage.
And here plays out the beauty of societal conditioning, together with the havoc that emotional blackmail causes in your brain. As much as I rail against the patriarchate I am not untouched by it. As much as I generally don’t care about looks I will still decide I can’t wear my favorite skirt because I put on a pound or two, and all of a sudden I think my ass looks big. I still blush if a guy tells me I am pretty while at the same time I rage that he thinks it’s ok to just comment and judge my appearance. And in this situation, I did think, somewhere in my brain, that sex is kinda ‘part of the deal’ and once you put out in a relationship you can’t just decide to say no. You have your cup of tea and you damn well drink it now that it’s in front of you. It’s just the done thing.
It wasn’t that I thought my bf had the right to my body, but the fact that I felt if I wasn’t sexual with him it would mean I didn’t care and I didn’t love him, or at least I worried I would give that impression to him. This was of course perpetuated and escalated by him indicating exactly those concepts to me. If I did not do my womanly duties, I obviously did not love him.
So, like my friend, I tried to avoid sex as much as I could without outright saying NO. I adjusting my sleep pattern just so that I was asleep by the time he got to bed or vice versa. All of a sudden PMS and your actual period are the most joyous days of the month because you have a “legitimate” excuse. But there are only so many avoidance techniques you can go through. Eventually you have to suck it up and just do it as the mental strain of guilt just becomes unbearable. Where avoiding being in bed together or saying no just becomes harder than to just detach yourself and let him use your body. And yes, that is what it is. Making the choice to let another person use your body. Women of the night at least get paid for that.
And don’t you believe I am the only women who has ever done this. It is a horribly screwed up thing to do, but many of us do it or have done it. Just as most women have faked an orgasm or pretended a headache. And it’s incredibly hard to talk about it too, because of the shame and disgust one feels about one’s own body and for ever having done it. To sink so low. To let someone make use of your body with your "consent". Yup let that sink in.
We do it because we think if we do not we have failed in the commitment of our relationship. We do it because we feel if we do not we send the signal of not loving our partner. We do it because we put the feelings of the other above our own. We do it because we feel a sense of obligation. We do it because we feel we are breaking the contract if we say no. We do it because we search for the fault in ourselves, blaming stress or hormones. We do it because we think we are just frigid and it’s not fair that the partner has to suffer because of us. We do it because we have been mentally brainwashed by society. We do it because it is easier to suffer in silence. We do it because we can endure it. We do it because we have been guilt tripped into it. We do it because he asked a million times and we can’t push him away again.
External guilt tripping and internal guilt tripping spiral together and just put so much pressure on us that it’s easier to lie down and let it happen. It is easier to feel disgusted with our own behaviour and our bodies, to feel dirty beyond ever being able to wash it off and ashamed at a level you can’t talk about it, than to carry the mental strain.
And do we actually blame our other halves or think this might be reason to leave them? No we continue to find fault in ourselves or the overall situation. We say to ourselves in defence: I am just not into sex that much, it used to be fun but I appear to have outgrown it, it’s just because we are no longer in the honeymoon phase, I’m just stressed and hence can’t enjoy it, It’s not his fault I don’t really feel like it any more, maybe I am just frigid, it’s not so bad to just do this once a month, it’s only my body. So we are the victim and the perpetrator, we force ourselves as we buckle under the emotional blackmail, coerced, shamed, resigned.
And the funny thing is, this can still happen to you even though you fully sign up to the concept of “enthusiastic consent”, even though you know you do not owe sex to anyone. Mental games and emotional blackmail are wicked tools and the person that swings them might not even be aware that they do it.
As highlighted before, although as a friend you think you’d see this stuff when it’s happening around you, you don’t. And why? We are masters of disguise. We can break down in a crying heap on our friends couch and all that comes out is anger at the situation and a lot of self-blaming usually ending with the typical I am sure I overreact and I probably blow things out of proportion talk and work is stressing me too. Feeble excuses, selective listening, putting a shiny happy face on. We get so good at it you never know what’s underneath. You never know when we stand on the last plank and when it will give under us.
Hitting bottom and run
How did I eventually get out? There were a few triggers in the last few months before I escaped. A drunken bf that told me explicitly he hated being with me. He explained that he thought I was a rubbish gf. I asked him if he wanted to part ways but he preferred suffering me over not being with me. That should really have been it but he was drunk and I rationalized it away once again. I think the most obvious trigger, the trigger that finally spurred me into action, were my thoughts of suicide. My mind drifted more and more often to that place where a tiny voice says: “You know if you just jumped off the building it would all be over”. I am too firmly attached to life to ever act on that but the thought was there, and growing and looking damn appealing. And that scared the hell out of me.
At one point I returned from a short trip to my parents and was overwhelmed with absolute dread, the feeling of wanting to vomit and run away screaming. The complete and foreboding sense of doom I felt at coming home, a place I usually rejoiced to returning to, the feeling of being imprisoned just finally made me snap and realise I had to leave. Luckily. And the euphoria that set in once I burned those shackles - wow what an elation.
Safe to say some of my friends hated me for it at the time. My ex was clearly the put out and wronged party. How were they to know otherwise?
Stockholm syndrome? Maybe
Alas you’d think having been manipulated once I’d escape that a second time - but no. These joy rides come in many forms. So my more recent relationship, although shorter, somehow contrived, in many ways to be more damaging. While the previous one had already given me a guilt complex I am still carrying with me and had made me get accustomed to feeling ashamed and disgusted with myself, this one just stripped what was left of me away.
It is safe to say that this guy I dated suffers from some form of personality disorder, addictive behaviour and no-one who's meet him or heard my stories at the time doubts he falls into the category of sociopath. Yea, I know how to pick ‘em. Thing is, if you don’t know what to look out for you miss the signs even when they slap you round the head.
What drew me into this relationship was, I think, the stark difference to the last. Here was a guy who seemed strong, with a vision, intense in everything he did. He had fire and passion. He would talk the talk of all he was going to achieve. Was that enough? Well, at the time I was still far from recovered from my previous relationship and in a foreign country. I had begun to struggle with self-doubt and recognition issues. I was lost on my way.
I thought he was exciting. Living from day to day, not giving a toss about societies rules of propriety. Just living life as he choose. He was awfully good in making me feel wanted and desired, which to be honest after 3 years of hating your own body and physical touch made for a nice change.
It just shows how important it is to give the mind as well as the body time to heal. We may feel ready and strong, but that does not mean we are.
I don’t know when it started to derail but it started early. After two weeks into the relationship it felt as if there had never been another guy in my life, it felt as we had been destined to meet. What whole load of bollocks.
Even looking back I do not know how he managed to have such a firm hold on me so quickly. I can only assume that is was due to being vulnerable to start with and at a time of my life where I was utterly directionless. When I found out within the first month that he had an addictive personality/habit I should have just closed the door in his face but I believed him when he said he would never take recreational drugs again. Isolated in a place where even alcohol is hard to come by, this was an easy promise to keep.
He quickly dominated all my free time and isolated me from the people around me. In a transient place where few people stay for more than a month or two this was easily done. Had I been in my home surroundings I probably would not have fallen for this dude. We had arguments about stupid things that would escalate to full shouting matches. He often belittled me or pointed out how much he dislikes certain core values and traits of mine. Would you like an example?
“I don’t usually agree with tattoos on girls, they look beautiful on you but don’t get any more.”
“I think it’s great that you are so passionate about yoga but really it’s all a sham.”
“I love your accent but Europeans are really the worst scum in the world.”
These may not be word for word quotes, but not too far off. Objectively I can tell you’re thinking “what the fudge? And you stayed with him?”. I can’t say enough that such manipulators and emotionally abusive people are often good with their words. They manage to phrase things that sound like praise while carrying very different meanings. They can make you feel special and then the next day use the same things to tear you down. And they choose their timing well, always creating contradictions. Making you doubt yourself to the point you think you are going a tad bonkers. The hatters tea party would have seemed a perfectly well adjusted setting all of a sudden.
In the end I was the full embodiment of all things he hated, and so there were plenty of things he could pick on. Once we moved to a different location, and it was truly just the two of us, the dependency deepened and he used that to full advantage. He could be the perfect boyfriend one day and the next he would glower at me and slaps my hand away when I touched him. He could tell people proudly that I taught yoga and the aerial arts, just to talk down to me the next day telling me to stop my ‘monkey crawling’.
He’d tell me he wants to help me open my own studio, make my dreams come true and could build up castles in the sky of unbelievable magnitude just to put his needs first in the end.
He managed to undermine me so much that I doubted everything I thought and did. Again I went the route of self-blame my dear old friend. I recall an argument where he would not believe me that Austria and Germany were not the same country. I am German, I should not have to argue something like that and still come out with a slight doubt about it.
We travelled often. Once we had moved locations and alcohol became frequently available he indulged in that too. He’d drink every day and it didn’t take him much to get drunk and then he would get verbally very abusive. Oh I gave back as good as I got, for most of it, but that didn’t mean it didn’t grind. He isolated us from everyone, and then he spend days not speaking to me or allowing me as much as a hug. He had an emotional carrot and stick method in place that I neither saw nor understood back then.
When someone is all over you one day, all lovey-dovey and then slaps your hand away the next day and gives you the cold shoulder, eventually you get insecure. Considering myself damaged goods already, I always tried to find fault with myself first and if not me then I would blame the alcohol he consumed or the circumstances we were in. Going from one extreme to the next became common place. It was the roller-coaster ride of Tartarus. Lofty heights with promises he’d never keep and dreams he imagined but would never put into action, spiralling down into the abyss. Talking down to me, telling me I am worthless, telling me I know nothing and am stupid, telling me he knows best, telling me I am nothing.
As so often with this sort of relationship, as much as I told myself he is wrong and I know I am right, I know I am worth something, over time it grinds and chips away on you and despite your best effort you start believing it. I like to think I never fully buckled under, and the ways I did rail up against him in our fights might be testimony to it, but I came close. These storms of emotion and fights take it out of you.
If I look at the pictures from that time I can even see it in my posture. It’s so telling. I smile the smile of happiness, and for all I knew I was happy in that moment, but my back is hunched, my shoulders slump. By the time we had changed locations yet again and we were now in Cambodia. I started to really buckle. It was just easier not to antagonise him. This didn’t stop the shouting matches, but they became fewer. By then he had put an emotional and physical reward and punishment system into place that I could not break free from. The only thing that eventually pried me away from this man were two deaths in my family.
Return home in shackles & breaking free
My aunt and my grand uncle passed away withing 3 month of each other. Without these horrible circumstances who knows where I would be now? I truly dread to think.
Even then I was so psychologically tied to him that we continued our relationship online. With me being so far away he got more extreme. Constant calling, demanding to know where I am at any given moment in time. Calling 40 times in a row just to verbally abuse me. I would switch off my phone but that was not the end. Shouting matches and love declarations via skype would follow that would reduce me to a heap of tears or make me swoon. Name calling, threats of physical pain. Emails to my friends threatening them and death threats towards my family would be mixed with messages of how much he missed me, desired me and couldn’t live without me. All this just screwed with my brain something seriously.
Still I went back to him one more time. I flew back out to him one more time, believing his lies one more time. Obviously, things did not change.
So, how did I finally get out? I think being back home with my loved ones gave me enough confidence in myself again to see through the fog. Once he betrayed my trust again the bubble burst for good. Everything became clearer. I don’t think I could have cut my ties from far away. I had to go back once more - as insane as that sounds.
It was a dangerous game once the bubble burst, and it burst only days after my arrival. I became more compliant and followed along, which pleased him. It gave him a sense of achievement and security I think. Finally I had learned my place? All the while I planned my exit. I was due to go back home briefly before returning to India. I could not change my flights without him knowing. If I had run away I feared he’d find me, so I manipulated back. By the time I flew back home he was convinced I would be back. I used every excuse: “I can’t stay longer because my visa will run out”, “It is my mum’s birthday as well and I know she would never forgive me if I wasn’t there”, “I need my hammocks to set up business and it will be easier to take them with me as I fly back out to you”. I’ve never feared for my life before but for a little while back then I think I did. Finally realising how unstable this guy was put a fear deep into my core and all I could think of was survival. I figured if he caught wind on my plan before I got away he would actually hurt me. Luckily he was too preoccupied with his own affairs and I must have played my role well. The Oscar goes to me!
And here after all I am telling the tale.
Psychological terror, death threats, emotional and physical closeness as reward and punishment, making you doubt yourself, telling you that it is your fault, that you make them do such things, telling you that it is you that is the mad one. It sounds like it’s easy to detect and walk away from but it starts slowly. The web gets woven around you and all of a sudden you are caught in the centre with no escape route. You feel cut off from friends and family and even though you only have to call them, email them, you don’t know how. By the time you realise how well and truly deep in the shit you are, you doubt yourself so much that you can’t fathom someone else would believe your crazy story. After all he’s never done anything to you. So that's what it's like to be in the victims shoes!
Recovering what is left
After spending some more month with my friends and family I got my shit together and gallivanted off to Vietnam for a year a mere 5 months after getting out of this destructive second relationship. I loved my time in Vietnam and I found my inner peace again, but it took until now – 3 years down the line, that I think I am starting to be myself again. I have lived my life from day to day, not taking chances, only taking well calculated risks and closing myself off, becoming more and more introvert. I shut the world out while travelling the world. How ridiculous is that? But so it was.
This type of abuse leaves its marks, as it were. I don’t have nightmares anymore. I do not think of either man anymore with anything but pity for them. Most of all I don’t blame myself anymore. That took the longest.
Phoenix rising
All the crud that goes on behind closed doors, the signs we choose not to see from the inside or the outside. How many of us are actually prepared to say “yup this is actually how I felt, this is what happened in my life”? It’s so much easier to just deal with it yourself and try to put it in the past. You don’t want people to see you as a victim, you don’t want people to see your shame, you don't want them to think you were weak, you don’t want to confess because that might make it more real. This stuff happens all around us and yet it’s hidden, buried and yet in plain sight.
This is not stuff we think of when we talk about harassment and assault but only because it isn’t physical doesn’t make it less real, less important, less frequent, less horrendous or less scarring. Emotional abuse is a form of assault. And it can happen to anyone. Any gender, any age, any culture. Be you strong willed or already easily influenced, it can happen to all. The signs might be there but we rarely see them at the time.
So it’s important to speak up, it’s important to acknowledge its existence and not belittle it. It’s important to talk about it and it’s important to raise concerns when we have them for ourselves or the people around us.
Sometimes being stuck in the web you need someone to pull you out by force because nothing else will do. Like we’d do with an addict we have to do the intervention and then send them off to rehab. We help the person to get out and away from the perpetrator as well as their own screwed up and meddled with minds. We all need this support system, this honesty. So don't shut up, don't look away and close your ears to what's happening around you. Raise your concerns and don't let convenience and propriety tell you to drop it. If you think something is intrinsically wrong investigate.
So this is my #MeToo. There was no beatings, no external force, no groping but an internal cage, a broken mind.
But a phoenix will always rise again. From the ashes it rises gloriously as it lifts off into the sky, spreading its wings riding the winds of freedom once more leaving a trail of fire in it's wake.
