March Check-in

Hello again!

I really am trying to get better about this. I think I'm already topping 2017 so progress!

March goals include:

1. Basic body care: drinking at least 48 oz of water a day, washing my face 2x/day, and eating at least twice a day. You'd be shocked how often that last one falls off.

2. Garden: Plant seeds/seedling, check daily, and weed at least 2x/week.

3. Mental Health: keep attending therapy and note each session in my bujo.

Yeah, I use words like bujo now. That's the kind of asshole I am. Honestly, all three of those general areas will probably stay on for the rest of the year, but the execution should change as I make progress. Let's do the check-in part of the check-in and see what progress I've already made! From February, I was working on:

1. Research skin care options and start investing in them (including drinking water). I'm still working on the water part, but I have a decent routine established now. I'm doing a 10-step Korean system, or at least working my way up to one. I've got both cleansers, a moisturizer, eye cream, toner, and some masks. I just ordered my first ampoule and my sunscreen. And a mom-bud is sending me some exfoliator samples. I haven't noticed any difference yet, but that's not so odd.

2. Explicitly target my mental health by finding a therapist. Found, and I've been 3 times!

3. Improved sleep hygiene: develop and implement a nighttime routine one step at a time. One of the biggest things I wanted to do was to stop sleeping with my phone. I ordered and now use and actual alarm clock that has sunset/sunrise simulations designed to help with more natural sleeping and waking. It's hit or miss whether I bring my phone to bed or charge it elsewhere. I'm also still pretty inconsistent about a decent bedtime, but I have been getting to work an hour earlier so the net effect is what I was hoping to achieve! At least until I die from sleep deprivation.

4. Make my peace with turning 30 (therapy should help). In my 3 whole sessions, we haven't had time to talk about this much yet. I'm still pretty hurt, especially considering that all the same friend group who blew me off are out tonight celebrating someone else's birthday without me because I had no idea there was anything planned until a day before and got stuck with baby duty.

Since we're already approaching the end of March, I'll go ahead and break that down a bit as well. I'm very inconsistent about the water and eating thing, but I've done pretty damn well with the skin care. You might point out that of those 3 things, skin care is probably the least important. You are not wrong, but I don't really care about or like myself and I'm not suuuuper invested in my own survival and skin care is the only one that is somewhat entertaining. I swear I'mma do a post soon about the details of my (current) routine. I have tilled our not-so-little garden patch - bonus! it was a good workout - and planted a few things in pots indoors. Next weekend is a long weekend and should put us past the worst of these steep temperature drops, so I'll be transitioning some pots outside and planting the remaining seeds.

Therapy... well that's a whole special beast. I have done well about documenting sessions but there's only been 3 so still plenty of time to screw that up. Shockingly, it turns out that I have anxiety, depression, PPD, anger issues, and PTSD! There is a lot of overlap in all of those things so probably the most salient is PTSD. Theoretically, once we address my trauma at least some of the others should diminish. I personally suspect that my PPD is a result of my PTSD as childbirth can be traumatic for assault victims. It was. Also shockingly, one of the reasons my PTSD has been so long lasting and severe is that I have difficulty connecting to people! Who would have thought I'd have trouble trusting and confiding in others with my interpersonal history? (Is the sarcasm clear in these statements? Should I italicize?) I've got a ton more to say, but we'll save that for another post. Fingers crossed we make it to two this month! I'mma try to be proactive and type it now. Come yell at me to get to work if you want.

My Story - Abuse part 5

Today, I'll be telling my story, my personal experience with abuse, and how I got out. This is highly personal and painful, so while I am open to comments, please be respectful.

Stage 1: Seduce and charm
My ex (now affectionately known as Dingleberry) came into my life when he was at the end of another relationship. We met because he was still friends with his ex, who was friends with my brother. We all ended up at a trivia night together and got along well, so the same group got together a few more times in the following weeks. He flirted with me and flattered me at these various events, and having never been in a romantic relationship before - and frankly a bit desperate for one at the ripe old age of 21 - I was pretty naively smitten. A boy! Who likes me! What?! That's crazy talk. But there he was and yes he apparently did. We started off pretty slow, since he was still living with his ex (his story was that they'd gotten a lease together and were amicable enough even after breaking up that they decided to share the apartment until the lease ended), but when my grandmother announced she was getting remarried that fall, we seemed serious enough for him to be invited.

The wedding went remarkable well. It was a small, fairly casual affair being that it was a second wedding for a woman late in life. Dingleberry charmed most of my family by chatting freely with everyone, joking, and helping to set up before the event and clean-up after. He received many family members' stamps of approval. I felt that I'd made a good choice. He became my first everything, including, regrettably, my first kiss and sexual partner.

He confided in me early on that he'd been abused as a child by his mother. After the end of our relationship, I started to realize how many things he probably lied about, but I have to say that this one I believe, having met the woman. He also "confided" in me about abuse he'd suffered in the Navy and the PTSD he still struggled with* and was successful in garnering my sympathy and affection as a result of these heart-breaking secrets (read: lies).

Stage 2: Isolate
Dingleberry encouraged me regularly to avoid "toxic" relationships. If someone upset me, his solution was for me to cut that person out of my life. They clearly didn't really care about me, so why waste my time? I was young enough, naive enough, and petty enough that this seemed to make sense, and I far too often took his advice, treating some friends with indifference. He also behaved incredibly differently around me than he did others. If I was in the room, he tried to play nice with everyone. Most of the time. If I wasn't, he didn't pull punches. He was abrasive and rude without cause around many of my friends, when moments before he had been ingratiatingly nice. Combined, these behaviors served to annoy people and gave the impression of him being "fake." Which he was, of course. More significantly, by now he was a fixture in my life, so this off-putting and sometimes outright offensive behavior meant that the friends I still had didn't want to spend time with me if he was going to be there. And he was, of course.

I know my friends did the best they could with the information they had. They couldn't know what Dingleberry would ultimately become or how bad it would get for me. At the time, he just seemed like kind of a douche-bag. So the solution of avoiding him, and as a consequence me, seemed basically harmless. That was part of his strategy to emotionally isolate me. I didn't understand why they couldn't get over their feelings about my boyfriend and just be there for me. I felt like I had no one to turn to or talk to when I needed someone. That feeling was exacerbated by moving across the country, but I felt it even before we moved away because I could tell that my friends didn't want to be around him/us. So in addition to just seeing them less, I was also less likely to reach out because I felt it wouldn't be acknowledged. My advice to people now is that, if you have a friend who is in a bad relationship, stick around as much as you can. Maybe the guy is just a jerk and isn't outright abusive, but leaving your friend to handle either situation alone can be dangerous and depressing. Plus, when and if it hopefully does end, they will need some support to escape and recover.

This relationship started at the beginning of my final year in college. It was the point in my life at which I was applying to grad school, as I wanted to be a full-fledged SLP. Dingleberry encouraged me to apply to San Diego State University (SDSU). He framed this request as an opportunity for me: SDSU was a great school with a great program (true) and it would allow me to live on the west coast (which I'd always wanted to and would still like to again someday). It would broaden my horizons! And what was the harm in applying? I could always say no, but I was so smart and so good that they would be crazy not to accept me. I had to at least try. So I did, and I got in! Even now, it's a moment I hold dear as it was indeed a pretty big accomplishment. He explained that it would be easy for us to get along in California because he'd lived there before during his time with the Navy. He knew all about it and could guide us. You can see that there is some overlap between stage 1 and stage 2, as he used his charm to isolate me. We moved to California, where I knew nothing and no one.

I was hopeful about the move. Not long after we arrived on the west coast, he proposed. We seemed to really be starting a life together. And even though I didn't know people, I thought I would make friends at work and school. But because of his reckless spending I had to drop out of school, unable to afford it. I got along well with my coworkers for a while, but he would harass me at work and upset them. Since he was so careless with our money, I could never afford to go anywhere but work, making it almost impossible to meet others. Additionally, he cheated on me multiple times over the course of our relationship. He only confessed to one, for which he begged forgiveness, but staunchly denied the other affairs. I found them because he used my laptop to check Facebook and usually forgot to log out. Thinking I was in my account, I would check messages and see conversations with women with whom he was sleeping. He had so well engineered my isolation that I was dependent on him for almost all human contact most of the 15 months I lived there. As not even he had much of an attachment to me, I was well and truly alone,

Stage 3: Introduce the threat of violence
I mentioned before that I think this is the stage emotional/verbal abuse falls into. While not a direct threat of violence, it softens the victim, lowers their self-worth and their resistance so they are more accepting of any kind of abuse.

After we moved, and some before, the name calling started. Dingleberry claimed this was simply an effect of his upbringing: his family were loud, violent arguers. They didn't really mean it, that's just how they interacted. This was his excuse whenever he called me stupid, worthless, boring, fat, lazy, useless, and/or ugly. I didn't know how to take care of a house, never mind that he never cleaned or cooked because that was my responsibility. I was uninteresting and embarrassing should we ever be interacting with his friends (recall that I had none at the time). I didn't earn enough because I only worked part-time as a way of allowing time for my graduate classes which I was no longer taking because he'd lost all our money. At the time, he was unemployed, though he pretended not to be because he "worked" as a webcam model. In one of the cruelest threats of our relationship, he insisted I had to become a "model" as well because we needed the money. When I couldn't handle the emotional fall-out that accompanied that situation, I quit and he harassed me for it throughout the rest of our relationship.

You're so pathetic! Just shut up, I don't want to hear from you.

This was the stage when, similar to Leslie's situation, he informed me that he had guns hidden throughout the apartment. I now believe this to be false as I cleaned that place from top to bottom and never found them, but the message was clear: he had the tools to hurt me.

This was also the point at which he became violent toward our possessions, including our dog (adopted using my money and without consulting me). He would often throw and break things, again, including our dog, putting more than one hole in the walls of the apartment that I ultimately had to pay to repair. The throwing and screaming and name calling happened as a result of several possibilities that all boiled down to one basic behavior on my part: disobedience. Or at least his perception of disobedience, though Dingleberry would never put it in such words. It happened when I did something the wrong way, when I corrected him, did something I shouldn't have altogether, spoke to someone I wasn't supposed to, interacted with other men, had other men look at me. Offenses were constant and impossible to predict. A classmate from school reached out to me once, months after I left and invited me to lunch to catch up. I told him about the invite and he seemed unperturbed. When I returned home, however, he insisted I had been meeting another man because I was having an affair. It couldn't have been a friend because I had none. Furthermore, he liked to role play that I was spending time with other men, and after the fact scream at me because my performance had been too believable and I must actually be cheating - oh the sad irony!

Stage 4: Violence
I was fortunate in that I escaped before I experienced much physical violence in the sense of beatings, but I did experience some. Dingleberry would want to "wrestle" with me. I have play wrestled with siblings and cousins when we were children. I have also play wrestled with my current - and wonderful! - Fiance. That's not what Dingleberry was really after. This was real, full on, competitive-type wrestling. He had an advantage in that he'd actually competitively wrestled before, and in that he knew what was coming. It never failed that he would contort my body into some extremely painful hold and keep me there until I was sobbing and begging for release.

The other physical assaults I experienced included sporadic kicking when I upset him or was in the way, shoving for the same reasons, and choking during intimacy because he "thought I'd like it." Most of the physical violence I experienced in our time together manifested as the choking did, as sexual violence. During our time together, he forced himself on me when I actively refused him 4 times, and coerced me into sex dozens of others. Another, more specific description of what happened is that he raped me, more than once.

Stage 5: Murder/stalking
Obviously my story did not end in murder, as I am here today telling it. But I did experience stalking.

The first summer after we moved to San Diego, several things changed. Dingleberry made a work friend with a long-term girlfriend. He wanted us to appear normal, so he decided we should have couple friends, and we began spending time with them regularly. That summer, a friend of mine from Tennessee decided to move to San Diego as well, so I was seeing her more often. Another friend got pregnant, and called to share the news with me before most others as we have been very close. These events are significant because they gave me outlets for expression. With other people in our lives, it cast a brighter light onto exactly what was going on, and forced me to really confront it. I now had people who asked me how I was, or how we were, and I started giving more honest answers. Although my friend having the baby (we'll call her Rara) still wasn't geographically close the way the others were (the couple we'll call CK and the girl that moved we'll call D), her opening up to me inspired me to open up in turn.

I started sharing my concerns about my relationship with D. I started going to church again with CK, where, as fate would have it, the pastor was doing a series on healthy relationships, and I was reminded of my worth. I started talking more with Rara, and it wasn't necessarily that we discussed Dingleberry's treatment of me, but just that I finally felt I wasn't alone.

It was during this time that, due to my incredible unhappiness and stress, I stopped having regular periods. Terrified I might be pregnant, I became even more stressed and started having panic attacks. This was further compounded by Dingleberry picking a fight with his mother, who had been coordinating our wedding plans in Tennessee. She was petty and vindictive enough that she canceled everything we'd planned for our wedding in September. This turned out for the best as our relationship would shortly end, but added to my worries at the time.

The literal terror I experienced at the thought of being pregnant translated to a decision to abort the child. It turned out I wasn't, but something at that point finally clicked. I realized I'd been subconsciously planning for the fact that we would get divorced some day, and didn't want a child tying me to this man for the rest of my life. I was also reasonably afraid that he would end up abusing the child, too. I realized I had to leave.

Sensing things had changed, he confronted me via Facebook messenger while I was at work and insisted I tell him what was going on. I told him I was ending it. At the time, I still wasn't quite able to admit I was in an abusive relationship, so I said it was because I didn't like who I'd become in our time together - which was true. I contacted my parents and told them what had happened - just the break up, none of the gritty details - and that I needed to come home and they immediately responded with overwhelming support. Even across the country, they had sensed something was wrong and were eager to help. My father bought me a plane ticket home for the end of October to give me time to collect my belongings and find a replacement for my job (I'd found a full-time receptionist position by then). I collected my things that night and spent the last month with my friend D. It is worth noting that the last month was easily the most fun I had in California. I look back on that time with great fondness and nostalgia.

Once I came home, he refused to leave me alone. He would call or text demanding money. Despite the paperwork he'd shown me they (we had a roommate at this point) were turning in to take me off the lease, he now admitted he'd lied and I had to pay up or ruin my credit. Worse, that it would ruin my father's credit since he had cosigned the lease. My father hadn't signed anything - another lie. I told him he wouldn't get a cent. What were they going to do, evict me? He'd already toileted my finances, so I wasn't worried about that either. Now that I was free, I could see through all his tricks and traps. I blocked his number and Facebook account. I refused all method of communication he tried to send me. I finally paid almost $300 to separate our joint cell phone account and cut off his line. Worth every damn penny. It was probably a year after the end of our relationship that I was able to cut him out of my life completely, and we hadn't married, didn't have kids. I imagine it's much worse for others.

Stage 6: Recovery
A new stage, one that I created instead of Dingleberry.

Remember that I told you when Dingleberry and I first met, he was living with his ex? Turns out, she's kind of awesome. We're actually pretty decent friends now, almost like a bizarre support group for a very specific situation. Turns out, he stalked her too, contacting her often after he and I started dating. He bragged to me when stalking me about his new girl. Her sister contacted me once, asking me about Dingleberry because they were engaged and about to have a kid. I told her the truth, which was that the idea of him as a husband and father terrifies me. I hope the girl got free.

It took me months even after leaving to really realize what he was. I still today think back on that time and realize something he told me that I just accepted as a fact then was probably a lie. It was probably more than a year before I labeled him an abuser, and even longer before I really admitted it to myself that I had been abused.

Why? Why did I stay? Part of it was as Leslie said. I was in love with a troubled man and only I could help him. He's suffered abuse, and PTSD. And we were going to be married! I wasn't (and still am not) the kind of person to take that commitment lightly. I couldn't just walk away because things were tough. Plus, where would I go? He'd isolated me so well, I didn't feel I had anywhere to turn. He'd lowered my already pitiful self-esteem to the point that I really believed no one else would want me.

(source)

The rest is the other part of the answer from Leslie's talk. In a very real sense, I was out there alone. It was dangerous for me to leave. I knew on some level even then, that if I set him off it could do permanent damage. When I collected my things that last night, I made sure our roommate and my friend D were both present. I was never alone with him from that point on, if I saw him at all.

So after all this deeply personal, overly revealing stuff, what's the point. Why did I share? For the answer to that question, let me remind you of Beth Moore's talk:

Where the devil has his way:
1. People live among tombs (literally or metaphorically - living in the past)
I have struggled with living in the aftermath of my abuse for a long time. I didn't know how to let go of the pain and disappointment of my past. As Beth put it, I was repeatedly breathing air into a corpse. The abuse was over and done, and even years gone, but I still couldn't stop obsessing over it. I've gotten better about that, and sharing this story is part of my process of putting it in the past where it belongs.
2. People have no voice
I was saved the minute I spoke up to my friends and family. Leslie says the same was true for her; abuse thrives on silence. I want to also let others know, who may currently be lacking in voice, that they are not alone. It's why I've publicly shared aspects of my experience that I never have before. You are not too lost to be saved. You can get help and you can get out. Until then, we must be the voice of victims and insist that this isn't ok. Demand that not be allowed to continue.
3. People do self-harm (physical or emotional)
One last confession I'll make is that during the time of my abuse (and other moments of emotional turmoil) I have been a cutter. Not often, not much, but it was a way of coping, a method of controlling a life in which I'd lost control. Freeing myself from Dingleberry and firmly claiming my self worth was the catalyst I needed to free myself from the burden of self-harm as well.
4. People are out of control and out of community
This one is obvious - I was lost and alone.

Where Jesus has His way:
1. Demons have to flee (again, literal and figurative)
As soon as I got back to church, I realized my relationship was wrong. And I got out.
2. People find a sane place in His presence
I often felt like I was out of my mind around Dingleberry, something he actively tried to cultivate so I wouldn't leave. Absent that influence, my head is finally clear.
3. People are robed in worth and dignity
This is perhaps the most significant thing Beth said, and the biggest reason I wanted to share with you all. I felt so ashamed of my past I've been hiding from it, and in that way, giving it power over me. In Christ, I have my freedom and my dignity back. I realize not everyone reading this is a Christian, but I can promise you that you still have nothing to be ashamed of. Someone else taking advantage of you and hurting you is NOT your fault. Stand tall and walk forward. They have no power to affect your worth.
4. People go and tell their stories.
And here we are full circle. Inversely related to having no voice, I felt the need to share my story now that I am free.

No one needs to live with abuse. Talk, and ask for help. We can put and end to abuse and domestic violence. Thank you for sticking with me through out this series. Be safe and well, my loves!

* I do not intend to make light of PTSD. It is a serious condition that many service members suffer from, and for which they deserve our support. My comment here was meant to indicate my lack of belief that Dingleberry was telling me the truth when he claimed to have the condition.



This is the final part of a multi-part series about abuse, addressing my personal experience, representations in media, and general information. No more additions to the series will be published. Find part 1 here,  part 2 here, part 3 here, and part 4 here.

Credit for the framework of this post to Leslie Morgan Steiner and Beth Moore, whose websites are linked above. Thank you for reading.

The Other Side

So remember my 2 Daily Smile posts about the Christian women's conference I went to with my mom? Here's a couple of links in case you need a refresher. I promised you more, and here it is! It might take me a while, but I keep my promises!

My mother texted to invite me home since I hadn't been in a while. She sent me a picture of a newspaper clipping about the conference, and since she and I have done a Beth Moore written Bible study with the women of mom's church before, I was familiar with Beth and enjoyed her presentation style, her take on things. My mother said she would pay for my gas and ticket if I chose to come, since I was currently unemployed.

The very picture I received

Once upon a time I might have been embarrassed to admit I'd received such an offer, much less that I'd accepted it. But I'm a little older and wiser, and I knew this was too meaningful an opportunity to pass up because of a misplaced sense of pride. So I told my mother I'd be glad to come, and we made plans.

I left a little before lunch for Memphis, in my mama-sponsored vehicle, and arrived only about 45 minutes before we had to head out again to get to the Forum on time. Although neither of us typically enjoys spending time in traffic, one of my favorite parts about the trip was the car rides since they allowed my mother and I some quality time together. It was just the 2 of us, conteplating what we were about to hear or what we'd just heard, catching up on those little tidbits about our respective daily lives that it doesn't occur to you to call and share, but you miss none-the-less, making jokes and laughing, and just enjoying each others' company in a way we hadn't had much time for lately. 

We were able to do some of the same once we arrived since, if you paid attention to the photo above, the doors opened and hour and a half before the event began on Friday and an hour early Saturday. We decided to arrive early both days so that we could get good seats - 9500+ women with no assigned seating is a bit of a mad house - plus we had to pick up our tickets from will call the first night. We got a bit of a snack from one of the many overrun concession stands, and waited.

It is impossible for me to describe the emotional impact of the worship in which we participated. The musicians and vocal performers were truly talented and obviously passionate. This tour meant a lot to them, you could tell, and they worked their tails off to deliver a meaningful, worshipful sound. Both mama and I were moved to tears more than once, especially with their performance of the Newsboys' song, "In Christ Alone."

Seriously, it was magnificent. Near the end, they softened the other instruments dramatically and played some deep, reverberating, powerful drumbeats for the lines, "There in the ground, His body lay. Light of the world, by darkness slain. The bursting forth [BOOM] in glorious day [BOOM] up from the grave [BOOM] he rose again [BOOM]!" It was like listening to the beating of my heart in time with thousands of others. 

Then came Beth. You guys, if you haven't heard her speak before, I highly recommend it. She is funny and passionate and down to earth. She's also incredibly intelligent and well-read and studied; she knows her stuff. Perhaps most significantly, she is extremely compassionate. The entire last hour the second day was spent taking prayer requests from members of the audience. She would immediately stop and fall to her knees, pleading with God to offer the women his comfort, mercy, grace, and help. She also called us to turn to our neighbors and pray for them, aloud, as one group. I said it before on my Smile post but, "I'm not sure I've ever heard anything quite as beautiful as 9500+ women singing together unless it was 9500+ women praying together." It was a truly overwhelming, powerful experience. I left feeling refreshed and renewed and hopeful.

Part of the reason I wanted to talk about LPL is because I want to encourage you, dear reader, to experience it for yourself. It is so worth it, and it can be a relatively cheap experience for you. In a couple of weeks (September 13), Beth Moore and Living Proof Live will be airing their annual simulcast performance. Check if your local church has signed up to participate and what it would take for you to be there. If they haven't, there is still time to sign up!

The other reason I wanted to talk about the event is because of the impact it had on me personally. Beth's chosen topic was titled "The Other Side." She was addressing passages in Mark and Luke that dealt with Jesus saving a demon-possessed man. Beth used the passages because she wanted to show us what it looks like when we allowed the devil into our lives. It hit me profoundly because, as you may recall, I'm currently working on a series about abuse. I realized that a lot of what was presented at the conference related, and it's part of why (in addition to severely limited time and energy) I chose to wait to post this now and postpone my final installment in that series.

I don't want to rob you of the experience of listening to Beth's presentation of this material, so I will simply lay out the 8 points she made and leave the discussion to her (seriously, go see her live!). I'm including them because I think they are meaningful in their own right, but also because I plan on referencing them tomorrow when I finish the abuse series (which is why this post is included in the series despite not being directly related).

Where the devil has his way:
1. People live among tombs (literally or metaphorically - living in the past)
2. People have no voice
3. People do self-harm (physical or emotional)
4. People are out of control and out of community

Where Jesus has His way:
1. Demons have to flee (again, literal and figurative)
2. People find a sane place in His presence
3. People are robed in worth and dignity
4. People go and tell their stories.

Some of these points will be more relevant than others when we come back to this tomorrow, and you might even be able to tell which ones.

(source)

[I want to share a bit about Beth before I go. Her bio doesn't mention it - but she freely will - Beth experienced abuse in her childhood. She's been through depravity and pain, and she will share that story with you readily to show that you are not alone. One of the best things I've heard her say time and time again is that it is impossible not to fit with Jesus. You can not go so far, or be buried so deep that He does not want you back, and she has put that to the test!]

We'll wrap this sucker up tomorrow, dears!

Why Doesn't She Just Leave? Abuse part 4

The above is a video starring a woman named Leslie Morgan Steiner about her book Crazy Love in which she discusses why victims of domestic violence don't just leave. It's about 15 minutes long and well worth your time to watch, and I'll break it down in text as well.

Leslie discusses the typical stages an abuser moves through in order to keep the victim on the hook, so to speak, using her own life as an example:

(Please note that for the sake of easy, consistent noun/pronoun usage, we're going to discuss the scenario of a heterosexual male abuser and a heterosexual female abuse victim. This is of course, not always the case. Abuse can and does happen in other situations as well, and in fact, over 40% of domestic violence victims are male.)

Step 1: Seduce and charm

(source)

Exactly what it sounds like. The abuser will present themselves as a charming, and typically somewhat damaged individual (this lays the ground work for violent behavior later ). Leslie's boyfriend told her how he himself was abused as a child* which gave him a sense of vulnerability and openness designed to further entice her. Abusers typically target young women in their teens or early 20s with little or no relationship experience and lavish attention on this person. The abuser will make his partner feel special and loved (and may even believe themselves that they do love her) in order to manipulate her into a long term, committed relationship so she will be reluctant to leave later without making some attempt to repair the relationship.

Step 2: Isolate

(source)

Also, pretty self-explanatory. The abuser encourages their partner to separate from family and friends, often presenting completely reasonable-seeming reasons why. Leslie provides the example of her now fiance (future abuser) telling her that he got a job offer elsewhere and finally felt strong enough to pursue it because she had helped him so much, pressuring her to move away from her known life to a small town some distance away. This step can refer to the use of emotional or geographical isolation, and often both. This way, when the violence starts, the victim feels she has no support system, no one to turn to except the abuser himself. (Of course, most of us have family and friends that would come to our aid in such a situation regardless of the distance, but we'll get to that in a second.)

Step 3 Introduce the threat of violence

(source)

In Leslie's case, she describes a scene in which her fiance held a gun to her head. At the time, he did not physically harm her (that comes later), but made it abundantly clear he could. The goal in this stage is to gauge the victims reaction to the threat, which informs the type and prevalence of violence later introduced. This is the stage in which emotional abuse begins, degrading the victim's sense of self-worth, convincing her - slowly, with oft repeated insults and verbal cruelty - that no one would find her worthwhile. This increases her emotional isolation and makes her less likely to turn to others for help. He blames his outbursts alternatively on her and his violent past so that she never really sees him as an "abuser," but someone who is damaged (remember how he laid the groundwork for this in step 1). This is also the stage of throwing things, breaking things, and making it known that there are weapons in the house, that violence may happen at any time.

Step 4: Violence

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This is when what most people traditionally think of as "abuse" begins. Please take a second and note that it took us 3 steps and several months (if not years) in the relationship to get here. This is one part of the reason victims don't "just leave him!" If one met a man for the first time, or even the second or third, and he punched you, of course you would report him! But by now the victim has been in "love" with her abuser for the long term. They've established a life together. And similar to the way it took time to work up to violence, the acts of violence also slowly build from (relatively) minor transgressions to major harm. In Leslie's case, the first time her abuser hurt her was just days before their wedding. He choked her and then almost immediately apologized, blaming his actions (as we discussed above) on stress and his past experiences. She still walked down the aisle. Eventually the beating became more brutal and more frequent. And here we see the reason why women/men/whoever is suffering at the hands of an abuser stay.

Why does she stay?!
Because the victims of domestic violence/abuse don't know they're being abused. They don't know their partner an abuser. In Leslie's words: "I was a very strong women in love with a deeply troubled man, and I was the only person on Earth who could help [my abuser] face his demons." Hence her term "crazy love."

Step 5 : Murder/stalking

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This is what happens when victims do finally leave, if they can. Here is the answer to the title question, but we'll come back to that. After the end of the relationship, the abuser will spend months to years stalking their victim. Social media, phone calls, email, text messages, all to prolong contact, often even after the abuser has entered into another relationship. If the couple had children, the abuser will take advantage of the family court system to prolong contact with his victim and torment her through their children. Finances can be manipulated to maintain contact as well. As I said, it can take years to fully escape them.

If you survive your escape.

So why doesn't she just leave?!
Because leaving is dangerous and often deadly. Over 70% of domestic violence related murders happen after the relationship has ended. As Leslie explains, at this point, the abuser has nothing to lose.

At the end of the video, Leslie comes to her point that initially inspired me to write this series. She points out that abuse thrives in silence, so we must break that silence and talk about it. Leslie got out when she told others about her abuse and they helped her. My situation was slightly different in that I haven't spoken about my experience with abuse much before (though I did cover it briefly and vaguely on my old blog), but I still reached out for help and got it. So talk. Talk about abuse. Spread the knowledge you've gained from my writing the the resources I've linked. And PLEASE, be considerate when you talk. Be compassionate. For so many people, the questions "Why did she stay?" and "Why didn't she just leave?" are code for "It's her fault; she should've just walked out." I hope you all understand now that it's just not that simple.

I leave you with one final PSA (in 2 parts):

*I want to clarify that this excuse is absolute horseshit. It's not impossible that someone who was abused could later in life become an abuser, I suppose, but it is not typical. It used to be considered likely, even one of the key contributing causes of abuse, that the abuser had been a victim themselves in childhood. Here is a great Upworthy post about it (please read, it's a short comic!) as well as the Wikipedia entry the comic refers to:

Causal factors of child sex offenders are not known conclusively.^[126] The experience of sexual abuse as a child was previously thought to be a strong risk factor, but research does not show a causal relationship, as the vast majority of sexually abused children do not grow up to be adult offenders, nor do the majority of adult offenders report childhood sexual abuse. The US Government Accountability Office concluded, "the existence of a cycle of sexual abuse was not established."

This is the part 4 of a multi-part series about abuse, addressing my personal experience, representations in media, and general information. Additions to the series will be published on Saturdays. Find part 1 here,  part 2 here, and part 3 here.

The next installment in the series will cover my personal experience with abuse, laid out with the general framework provided in this post courtesy of Leslie Morgan Steiner's work. Find part 5 here.

Twilight & 50 Shades - Abuse part 3

Welcome back to PART 3!

For starters, who guessed the other abusive relationship in Frozen? It should be obvious: HANS and ANNA.

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I'll break this down quickly, because I think everyone recognizes how destructive Hans was, and we've got other stuff to get to! As we all know (because we all saw the movie, right?) Hans lies to Anna, manipulates her into agreeing to marriage after a frighteningly short time, and ultimately attempts to murder both her and her sister for his own ends. It was a brief relationship, but there can be no doubt that he's an abuser. And just generally a douche-canoe.

Let's move on to other representations of abuse in popular media. You know where this is going; it's in the title! Twilight and 50 Shades of Grey.

These have both been talked to death by people more articulate than I, but I still feel they are important to address because not only are they popular and mainstream, but they represent abusive partners as desirable. That is just horrifying. Yet it remains true that countless naive young women (and a creepy number of older gals who should know better) describe Edward and/or Mr. Grey as the ideal man.

Here's a list of signs of abuse (from the Mayo Clinic site):

Calls you names, insults you or puts you down

Prevents or discourages you from going to work or school

Prevents or discourages you from seeing family members or friends

Tries to control how you spend money, where you go, what medicines you take or what you wear

Acts jealous or possessive or constantly accuses you of being unfaithful

Gets angry when drinking alcohol or using drugs

Threatens you with violence or a weapon

Hits, kicks, shoves, slaps, chokes or otherwise hurts you, your children or your pets

Forces you to have sex or engage in sexual acts against your will

Blames you for his or her violent behavior or tells you that you deserve it

Countless people have pointed out that this is an almost exact description of how Edward treats Bella. He's definitely possessive and jealous, he isolates her from family and friends, constantly threatens her with violence (wanting to eat her) and blames it on her (because she smells so good and he just can't resist), and he controls their sex life independent of what she wants. But don't take my word for it, read the books with these points in mind. I'll let one of my favorite vloggers break it down for you as well.

It's no surprise, then, that a series of books that got their start as Twilight fan fiction also glorify abuse as a desirable quality. Oh yes, 50 Shades was originally a Twilight fan fic. Hopefully that will scare people away from taking it seriously, but the book shouldn't need any help in that regard. Not only does it glorify abuse in a similar track as Twilight, but it completely misrepresents BDSM (as based on reviews by those in the know and which really needs no further stigmatization, especially based on falsehoods) and is just really, really, really poorly written. Seriously, this POS is worse that even it's inspiration POS penned by Meyer.

There are others who know more about the topics discussed in 50 Shades, so we'll again turn to the experts.

both images courtesy of tickld.com

And finally, a review from an actually book reviewer (reviewist?) My favorite exert:
"I understand that it’s fantasy, but a twenty-one-year-old who’s never had – or even tried to have – an orgasm? A smoking hot, only-twenty-seven CEO making “one hundred-thousand dollars an hour,” a salary that easily trumps (pun intended) Bill Gates’s? Suspension of disbelief only goes so far outside of Aesop’s fables."

Again, the really scary part about all of this to me is how normalized it's becoming. Young women (and men) often don't know the warning signs of abuse when they first enter the dating/sexual/relationship world. That's part of the reason people often get into these relationships in the first place; they don't know what to look out for. We as a nation need better sex education for a LOT of reasons, and this is one of them. When books like Twilight and 50 Shades get published and popular and made into movies, these young innocents who don't have any experience and don't know how to recognize the more subtle signs of abuse (though many in the books aren't all that subtle) think that what they are reading about/watching represents, not just a normal relationship (wrong!), but an epic romance (also wrong!). There are a lot of lies our movies and books feed us that give us unrealistic expectations when entering the romantic scene, but this has got to be the worst. These books are advertising for abuse. They are telling people (specifically girls, as both "protagonists" are female) that they can only find true love, fairy tale, Romeo & Juliet (don't get me started on that farce), epic romance type of love if they let their partner abuse them. It's sick, and it's deeply frightening.



This is the part 3 of a multi-part series about abuse, addressing my personal experience, representations in media, and general information. Additions to the series will be published on Saturdays. Find part 1 here and  part 2 here.

The next installment in the series will cover the pattern and stages of abuse. Find part 4 here and  part 5 here.

Never Going Back - Abuse part 2

Today, let's discuss the inescapability (new word?) of abuse. HAHA, THAT'S... dark. It's also not true. But it also is true.

That got confusing quickly. What I'm trying to say is that, while someone may be able to get out of an abusive relationship, that doesn't really mean it's over. We'll go back to Frozen to address this. We talked last time about the awesome abundance of symbolism in the movie, and specifically in the signature song, "Let It Go." I also mentioned briefly that we all saw, despite her new found sense of empowerment and seeming freedom, Elsa's lack of fear was a passing phase. As soon as she was confronted with a problem, the fear came bubbling right back up and out.

Let me digress here, briefly. A common issue I have with television and movies is the oversimplification of solutions to problems. I know that a lot of this is due to limited time, but I feel like that's a convenient excuse. It's really just wishful thinking, as we'd all love for things to be that easily fixed. But you can't confess to your crush and expect things to end happily ever after just because they like you back. Real relationships encounter problems, even with the most well-adjusted people, and they take work. Likewise, you also can't spend years suffering emotional beatings and suddenly be fine just because the perpetrator is out of the picture. All those terrible things they made you believe about yourself still live inside your mind. One of many reasons I love Frozen is that the film spends a little more time on dealing with these issues (if still less than is representative of real life). So as much as Elsa might feel that she's finally able to escape by leaving her kingdom behind, the real damage is something she carries with her. Her song is beautiful and inspiring, but it's also a lie. She does cry again.

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She is still afraid.

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And she still feels trapped.

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Also, gets literally trapped!

We see these things happen minutes after she professes to be free of them. Part of the problem is what I mentioned above: you can't live with that kind of abuse for years and expect to get over it in a 60 second song. But the other part of it is that her solution to her problem was to run away instead of dealing with it.

Allow me another digression to clarify that I am not advocating, under any circumstances, that someone in an abusive relationship should stay in that relationship and try to make it work. Get out as soon as you feel you safely can (another topic for another day). What I'm talking about here is confronting and dealing with the emotional fallout of the abuse.

Elsa runs from Arendelle in an attempt to outrun her feelings, and when she figures out she can't, those feelings overwhelm her and threaten the people she loves, her sister and subjects. Elsa's parents convinced her that she was dangerous and created within her a sense of self-loathing and low self-esteem. It didn't matter how hard she tried to be the "good girl" and please them, her powers always spilled out. Running away from the castle freed her from having to confront these things temporarily, but not from feeling them. The slightest mis-step (granted, eternal winter isn't exactly slight) and all that guilt and fear come right back because the abuse she experienced made her genuinely believe terrible things about herself. It doesn't matter that no one is saying those things any more. They don't need to. She's been long since convinced.

The real world correlate for this is the emotional isolation victims of abuse often feel even well after the end of the relationship. It has certainly been something I struggle with. You don't want to admit to people how bad it was because the abuser (and often, society at large) has convinced that you were the problem, that what happened was your fault. You may even know better in your head, but after years of what was basically brainwashing, it's hard to really know that in your heart. So you still believe on some level that you are worthless, boring, cruel, ugly, stupid, or whatever else the abuser told you, and therefore not worthy of other people's time and attention. If you really let them in, they would hate you and hurt you, and this way you get to hide from all of those terrible things you've started to believe about yourself.

That, for me, has been the worst part about living through abuse. This is a person that I loved, and I person that I totally believed loved me. If a person who loved me, whom I trusted, told me these things, surely they must be true?

Just as Elsa trusted her parents to protect her and lead her down safe paths, so often do the abused take the word of their abusers as truth.

That kind of hurt and fear can, and does, become a part of who you are. I used to spend every moment of my day carefully analyzing and planning my actions, my words, my dress, my meals, everything in order to make sure it would be pleasing to my abuser so he had no excuse to belittle and hurt me. It was never enough, nor could it be. And I still carry that sense of constant caution today, though it has lessened. It took me months to willingly eat certain foods in front of others because my abuser told me that I looked disgusting when I chewed, and I didn't want to upset anyone. I stopped wearing make-up because he would accusingly ask me who I wanted to look pretty for, although now I don't put any on because I don't want to wear it. I still have to talk myself out of keeping secrets about silly things because they used to upset him, like whether or not I talked to anyone that day, and whom. There were times when I wouldn't eat because I was worried that I might choose something for my meal that he wanted, and to this day I still feel guilty and uncomfortable eating "other people's food," even though those other people might be my parents with whom I live and would not care. These are things I learned to do in order to survive, and even though the actual abuse is over, I still have to spend time recovering from those thoughts and habits. Reminding myself that I am safe and I can just be. That the people in my life value me and want me around. That I am worthwhile and worth love.

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You have to turn and face those issues if you expect to overcome them. Opening up to those who care about you and telling the truth about how you feel is an absolute necessity for recovery, because they will be the most important reminders of all that good stuff. It's an old cliche, but accurate: The truth can [help] set you free.

This is the part 2 of a multi-part series about abuse, addressing my personal experience, representations in media, and general information. Additions to the series will be published on Saturdays. Find part 1 here.

The next installment in the series will cover the other abusive relationship in Frozen (since I got a little wordy and couldn't fit it in today as originally planned) and the dangerous precedent set by the abuse in Twilight and Fifty Shade of Grey. Find part 3 here, part 4 here and  part 5 here.

Let It Go - Abuse part 1

I know, I know, SHUT UP ABOUT FROZEN ALREADY! Right? Here's the thing, guys, people spend a lot of time watching/discussing/obsessing about that movie because it had a crap ton of interesting messages ripe for dissection. You don't have to love the story, the characters, or the music, but it's pretty groundbreaking (for Disney) in a lot of ways.

Specifically, we're going to talk about abuse.

I know I'm not the first to address this topic in reference to Frozen, nor will I be the last or the most articulate. But I still find it to be one of the more overlooked themes, probably because a lot people think it's not one. They think those of us who point out the abusive relationships in the film are reading too much into it or taking it too seriously. And I can't really disagree that we might be seeing things in the film not intended by Disney. To me, however, that makes it all the more disturbing. Like the Twlight Saga or the the 50 Shades of Gray books, we're presented with yet another wildly popular story about abuse that most people don't recognize as abuse. These shows how little many people know about it's warning signs. What's worse, in the case of Twilight and 50 Shades, it teaches readers to glorify abuse, and see those warning signs and those relationships as good things, something that should be sought out instead of ended, but I digress, and fortunately, that's not the case in Frozen.

Before we move forward, should you be that one guy living under a rock who hasn't yet seen the film, be aware that there are SPOILERS! ahead, so read at your own risk.

The first time I heard the song "Let It Go," was when a friend of a friend posted the YouTube video to Facebook.

Still gives me chills!

The song immediately struck a chord with me. Actually, it straight up punched me in the stomach and knocked the wind out of me. I hadn't seen the movie yet, and in fact, didn't even know it existed at that point. But one listen to this song and I was in tears, struggling to catch my breath. Why? Why did it affect me so strongly? I spent some time reading over the lyrics, analyzing them, and saw the movie (by which point I'd listened to this piece often enough I could sing along during the film). I finally put it together. We all know, and have talked to death, how great a song this is for young people (especially girls) because it is all about empowerment and accepting and embracing who you are regardless of what others might think. That's all true, but for me, this song is about escape. It's about freedom. It's about finally breaking free of the mental hold of her childhood abuse.

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Some of you may have read that last sentence with shock. Sure, Elsa had a sad and difficult childhood, but she wasn't abused. She was, though. Her parents loved her dearly, and may have thought that their actions were justified in an attempt to protect both their daughters, but they emotionally abused Elsa. They spent years talking her into hiding something that was a fundamental part of her being (specifically her powers, but this could be viewed as a metaphor for a lot of things). They convinced her that the very thing that made her special and wonderful was something about which she should be ashamed and fearful. Something she had to hide. They isolated her from everyone in her kingdom, and even encouraged her to stay away from, and lie to, other family members. This cage they forced her to build around her heart had such a strong hold on her that even after her parents' deaths, she was terrified of herself. Terrified that doing or saying the wrong thing at the wrong moment could end her life. She still couldn't let it go.

**pauses for applause at using post title naturally in body of post**

It took her sister, forcing a confrontation (which is not the right way to approach victims of abuse, a topic we'll address later) for her to admit the truth about the situation. So when Elsa sang that song, it was not just about being herself, or letting go of her power and enjoying it. It was about letting go of those chains placed on her by her parents's abuse and her fear. It was Elsa finally recognizing that she could be free.

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I have been the victim of abuse. I have felt myself, despite being now years removed from the experience, holding back, biting my tongue, and settling for what I don't want because those are the habits I developed to survive and they are so deeply ingrained in me, it's hard to recognize them for what they are. When I heard that song, it was symbolic to me that I could let go of the fear. I could do those things that used to earn me punishment, that used to set off his anger, because that wasn't the world I lived in any more. 

However, as we saw for Elsa, just deciding to get over it and let go isn't really enough. There was still work to be done, both within herself and in her kingdom. The same is true for real life victims of abuse. I don't live with the daily risk abuse anymore, but the fallout is still with me, like the habits I mentioned above, and to some degree always will be. 

This is the beginning of a multi-part series about abuse, addressing my personal experience, representations in media, and general information. Additions to the series will be published on Saturdays.

The next installment in the series will cover the other abusive relationship in Frozen (bonus points if you can guess it, it's pretty obvious!), and how abuse isn't over just because it's over. Find part 2 here, part 3 here, part 4 here and  part 5 here.