Seriously, unless you know, you do not know
Most of the time, we do not know when someone who we love is being abused. We do not know it and when they eventually tell us we do not believe it. We do not believe their words, or their truth, and we fail them, unless we do know.
And I promise you all that indeed, I do know...I know what it is like to feel like you are constantly walking on eggshells, and I know what it is like to constantly not know who you really are because you are always being told, somehow, that who you are is wrong, is damaged, is not good enough and never will be. I know what it is like to be always with that energy of feeling like you are always being watched, and I know that feeling that says that we have to prove ourselves worthy in the eyes of one person who we did not know would hurt us.
Leslie Morgan Steiner hit the nail very well on the proverbial head when she tells us in her youtube video that a person who is in the middle of the crisis of abuse might not realize that they are being abused, so it is not okay to tell people that they are being abused, not okay to diagnose what it is that is the problem, and more than that, it is SO NOT OKAY to blame the victim. Yesterday, and yes, I will continue to pound this particular nail on the head when I call out to those who have been victimized and remind them who have the idea in their heads that since it was almost easy for them to get gone from the situation (because that is the way that it was presented to me BY them) I make no excuses for anyone, but I make the stand for those of us who cannot voice their own lives because they are no longer alive because one day they chose to leave WITHOUT A CLUE as to how they would handle things when their abuser finds them...and they do find us...I Promise they do! NOT ALL ABUSERS ARE GOING TO GIVE UP THEIR QUEST TO DESTROY THEIR VICTIM!! It is the destruction of the human being within us that an abuser seeks to kill of, because that is the part that tells ALL OF US that somehow, this is not right.
Well DUH!
Yup...no kidding it isn't right, but it is here, and we are here, and there is abuse, and no matter who says what to me, you are not me, you really do not know me because you have chosen to place me in the section of your mind that tells you that you went through it and you got out and you are still alive.
Well, la dee da and super terrific for you! You are to be lauded for saving your own life. There, I said it. I am disgusted by people - namely those who were victims but are now survivors - who seem to think that not only is it their right and their duty to tell us that we should just leave, but who believe that everybody' story is the same. While the facets might be, I promise you that the realities are not.
Am I calling out only one person? No, not at all. I am, however, making it known right now that while I might not be everyone's perfect example of a Survivor, I promise you that I am, indeed, just one such Survivor, and I am said such Survivor because at the end of it all, I have no hatred for this person. I may have an inkling of pity for him, and I might even go as far as saying that truly, I never hated him, even though I was scared to death of him. And yes, there are those who were abusers who can and do change their ways, but this does not make what they did any less awful, because even though this person is no longer scaring me into a full blown panic, the memories - they will never go away.
Rather than our continuing to give former victims and survivors of Domestic Violence and Emotional Abuse more to feel badly about themselves over, such as telling them that they are weak for not leaving, that since you were able to leave without worrying about anything after the fact that everyone else can just breathe easier too, such as comparing who you are to them and thinking that your solution is the most universal and that it is the best way because it is your way. This is a very dangerous way of thinking. This is how more women and teen aged girls end up dead. This is why I feel that it is so very important that a part of ANY OFFICIANT'S program for marrying people should include some small measure of giving a clue to the clueless...and if you think that telling another person that they are weak, that they are going to get killed if they do not do like you did and just leave, then you are not helping anyone at all...in fact, you are only possibly making it worse for them, and yes, yes they can end up dead...
Instead of behaving how you likely have behaved with others in the same situation, why don't you instead go tell the people it will matter to more - such as the cops, the lawyers and judges who hand down their sentences, other clergy folk who also are in the position to make it known that this is not acceptable? Why is it easier for any one of us - myself included at one point in time until I got the help needed by ALL WHO HAVE BEEN ABUSED BY ANYONE - to tell other victims of abuse to just leave when you know very well that sometimes, that is just not the right thing to say to such a person?
Why is it that we fail to the side of our human nature that tells us that it is somehow the victim's fault that they get hurt emotionally, that they end up beaten bruised and injured, because they stay in a place where they either do not know that they can leave, or more importantly, that they are getting beaten and that they are going to be killed if they stay? While I am not suggesting that ANYONE stay in any kind of abusive relationship, I am suggesting that sometimes, it is just not physically safe to just get up and walk out. That alone is enough to make any abuive person, male or female, crazy with the thoughts that they have to somehow make their possession come back and that if said same possession does not that they will force them back, and when they are forced back the reality is that these victims stand a very good chance of no longer being the victim of domestic violnce...no no no...at that point, they stand a greater chance of being another, far more sobering statistic...
At that point, they are then primely in place to become a homicide victim...
Just sayin'...
