Domestic Violence: Speak the Evil....Part II

It's been too long since I've had a chance to finish this blog. Seeing Rhianna's battered face all over the Internet made me say, "OK...this has to be done NOW!" So let's get to it.


emotional/verbal abuse (mindgames)

"You are SO stupid." "You are the dumbest b*&^% I have ever met!" "You are so worthless"

These are examples of verbal abuse. After all of the affection and attention, which then leads to possessiveness, here comes the mind games and the verbal abuse. One minute, you're the best thing on the planet. The next...well, you get the idea.

My father was great at verbal abuse. He called my mother and I every name in the book. "Fat, ugly, stupid, dumb..." you name it, we were called it. The worst part about it is that I couldn't tell my friends and family what he called me and my mom. They wouldn't believe me.

My father did what most men do in these situations - play mindgames. You see, everyone outside of my immediate family (even some of my immediate family members) had no idea that my dad was an abuser because he would proclaim to the outside world that we were the best things since sliced bread. Does this sound familiar to you?

For a long time, I scratched my head, wondering why a man would do this. As I got older, one word came to mind: control. All of these things are done for control. The verbal abuse and the mindgames maintain control, while the other steps establish control (in some weird way).

My dad was able to control my mom and myself through verbal abuse. There were many times that he would just look at me and I would break down and cry because I would start to imagine the words that would come out of his mouth. My mom did whatever he asked just so she didn't have to hear his mouth. Worst of all, this kind of relationship made my mother and I more like sisters - fighting over some crazy dude - instead of a mother and daughter that would support and love and stand for each other.

Unfortunately, the mind games don't stop at verbal abuse. There are times when a man speaks to you like you're the queen of the world and then talks about you like a dog to everyone else. I have known women who caught their man cheating but because they played such good mind games, these women were made to feel guilty about "not trusting your man" or "being nosey" or "starting drama" or whatever the buzz words are for today.

If you are in this situation and the man has never hit you, my "suggestion" would be to leave now. It is my experience that most men that reach the verbal/emotional abuse stage are going to hit you at some point or another. Whatever attempts they are making to pacify you will not work and men understand this. NO ONE can take that kind of abuse without trying to fight back at least once. They anticipate it and it seems like the abuser waits (almost anxiously) for you to try to rise above so that they can bring you back down.

It is really hard to break out of this stage. Even if and when you do, the effects last for a long time because you start to believe that everything this man has said is true. Once you see beneath the facade, your heart is broken as well as your spirit. So what can you do if you are a victim of mind games/verbal abuse:

1. Don't beat yourself up.
2. Forgive yourself
3. Get a good support system of people that truly love you, no matter what
4. Do NOT deal with the "I told you so" kind of voices that maybe prevalent in your life.
5. Do whatever you can do to heal - take walks, meditate, pray, see a therapist...whatever you need to do to understand and truly feel that you are not a product of this abuse and you can get over it, DO IT

This also goes for any of the other patterns of abuse. When it comes to physical abuse, there may be even more you have to do and I'll talk about that later.

Understand that this is a process. Just like gaining weight, it took time for this to happen. None of this happened overnight (even though it may seem that way). So knowing that it's going to take a while for this to pass will help you to appreciate the little things. It's the little things that take you away from these huge ass bricks on your heart and soul.

domestic violence

You wanna know something? I took me a long time to write up this part of the post because I truly don't know where to begin. Anger, frustration, and fear are weird emotions. There are times when it serves you. But when these emotions lead to beating up your spouse, it never serves you.

I can talk about these patterns as if there is a certain timeframe in which you are a victim of domestic violence but it's not always the case. My friend lost her eye due to domestic violence last year. It was the first time her boyfriend ever touched her. Sure, he tried to control her and gave her lots of affection (which turned into possession). In spite of this, she never thought she would wake up one day without an eye.


There are also a lot of men that are victims of domestic violence (a 2007 study showed that there were 835,000 cases of men being physically assaulted or raped by their intimate partners each year). Most of them don't even report it. What my friend and most men have in common is that they tried to walk away first. Yeah, you read right. She tried to leave before anything happened. Often times, that is trigger enough for a person to snap.

I say this because I know a couple of men that are victims of domestic violence. Their stories are very similar:

We got into an argument and she kept pushing me. Then she tried to hit me. I held her so that she would stop but then she started kicking and biting. I didn't want to hit her so I tried to walk away. Then she hit me in the back of my head with a _______. At that point, I just "blacked out" (which means to lose control) and...

In the case of my friend (a female), she and her boyfriend got into a heated argument. She asked him to leave and he refused. She said she would leave. Before she could open the door...bam!

In these past weeks, I have learned a lot more about domestic violence than I have in my 16 years of being abused by my dad and watching my mom being a victim of domestic violence. But of course, in my learning, there are new questions to ask:

• Is there really a thin line between "defense" and "domestic violence," especially when it comes to men?
• Are there exceptions to the rule that "a man should NEVER hit a woman?"
• How do we deal with the anger and fear that comes from insecurities before it turns into domestic violence?
  
• How do we help men, women, and children to deal with this dis-ease?
  
• Can we, as a society, heal from this?

I don't have the answers at this time. Domestic Violence and Physical Abuse is always wrong - whether a man does it to a woman or vice versa. But there are always exceptions to the rules, right?

Let me know. If there is one thing I have learned from all of this that doesn't need a Q & A, it is this:

One person alone will not have all of the answers. We all have to get involved to make domestic violence a thing of the past.

If that means calling the police if you see someone being a victim, do it. If that means making sure your children don't become perpetrators by letting go of your current spouse, then do it. If that means taking time out to talk to victims of domestic violence and empowering them to live healthier lives, so be it. Even if that means trying to help the perpetrators of domestic violence, then that's what it means. EVERYONE is a victim when it comes to Domestic Violence. Even the person doing it...especially the person doing it.

Please help me in trying to figure out how to help others so that we can stop this. Comment, email me or Twitter me about it. I was going to let this one wait for my editor but I can't. There is too much talking about it for me to hold back. So please pardon the lack of professionalism of this post. I had to speak from the heart.

Stay strong, stay healthy, and fight dis-ease!

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Domestic Violence: See the Evil, Hear the Evil Speak (against) the Evil (Part I)

I just want to let you know that this is NOT a Random Thought. This has been in my mind for a long time but deep down, within the darkest recesses of my brain. Now that it has come to the forefront, I need you to know that this is my experience. It's not a matter of whether you agree or not. If you see or have seen this pattern, please do not be afraid to say so. If you have not seen this pattern or see a totally different one, speak on that as well. There are going to be many sides to this and I'm willing to be open so that I have a better understanding of what I need to do to make a difference for the those involved in Domestic Violence situations- men, women, and children.


There are a lot of people in my life that are affected by domestic violence. Either they are the perpetrators, the victims, or the products of this environment (or all three at once). Although past situations have left me in a state of shock, anger, or denial, I have now come to realize that I have to do something to help people get out of this. I cannot allow anymore children to be a product of domestic violence, like I was.

So to start this off, I would like to talk about the pattern that I usually see in men that leads to physical abuse. I will put this in order according to my experience. For many others, these things may happen but the order is different or the impact of the step is not as strong as others. For some, these "stages" may not occur at all.

One more disclaimer I would like to put out there is that I am not a doctor or psychologist. I'm not a psychoanalyst or anything like that. I am a holistic health counselor who has a lot of common sense and has seen too many of these situations NOT to know how it works, starting with my dad.

Let me know if you agree, disagree, or don't care:


affection

Every human being craves affection. I don't care how old or young you are. According to wikipedia, affection means:

a "disposition or state of mind or body"^[1] that is often associated with a feeling or type of love, amounting to more than goodwill or friendship. It has given rise to a number of branches of meaning concerning: emotion (popularly: love, devotion etc)...

Affection can be shown in various ways, depending on the person. Most women want affectionate men in their lives. They want a man who will hold their hand in public or send flowers to their job. Some women would settle for a man who picks them up from work everyday to come home to a nice meal, etc.

There is nothing wrong with a little bit of affection. However, always be mindful of too much affection. A man telling you that he loves you every second of the day. A man telling you that he can't live without you every second of the day. How about this man not only picking you up when you get off work but the same man going everywhere you go!

It seems nice at first. You're gushing to your girlfriends about how attentive he is to your needs. With time, when you're with an abuser, this will shift.

One day, you want to go out with your girlfriends. This automatically means that your man can't come. At first, he seems ok with it. So you go out and have a great time. You come home and your man seems happy but now those bubble baths you used to get everyday after work has decreased. Another example is one day, you have to work late so your man won't be able to pick you up at the usual time. He says nothing but makes you feel guilty when you go home.

As the small shifts occur and you dismiss them, you start to deny the larger shifts as well. When you walk down the street with your man, holding hands, his grip gets tighter everytime a man (or a pretty woman) passes by. If a man walks by and smiles at you, all of a sudden, your man is going crazy - yelling and having an attitude. You start talking to your girlfriend for too long on the phone and it's a problem.

This is where affection shifts to possessiveness. You are no longer his "woman" but his property and he can do no wrong in taking care of said property.

control

Now that you are this man's "property" and possessiveness has taken over, it's time for him to attempt control of every aspect of your life. From what you wear to who you speak to on the phone, you are now under constant surveillance. He tells you that he loves you and is looking out for your best interests. He tells you that he wants you to have the right people in your life.

Next thing you know, you are no longer speaking to your mother because you told him that your mom no longer approves. No more girlfriends for you either. It's a good thing you can still speak to co-workers (only because your man isn't around) but no hanging out after work for you.

Soon you are going to live in a prison. By the time you figure this out, you either can't get out or you don't want to. It's times like these that control gives love a bad name. It's not love that causes these men to imprison you. It's insecurity and fear - on maybe everything and anything, based on his environment, past experiences, or some deep seated secret he maybe hiding. Your man would never admit to this so here the cycle continues.

It is at this point when a woman first starts to feel that something is wrong. It is also usually at this point when the woman would start making excuses for her man, especially if the memories of affection are still fresh (although I do know that there are times when a woman would start making excuses for her man even before this stage occurs). She may say something to their boyfriend/spouse and he may calm down - for a short time. But then put on a nice dress that comes above the knee or let him find out that you've been texting your girlfriend that he doesn't want you to see. Then the real fun begins.

I'm going to leave it here...but only for a short time. Next time, I will talk about the last two stages - emotional/verbal abuse (mindgames) and domestic (physical) violence. Thank you for reading my blog. Please comment or send an email to drea@dorightforyourself.org if you have anything you wish to share.

Until next time...stay strong, stay healthy, and fight dis-ease! 

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