| THE POWER OF ABUSE |
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When I tell people about my daughters father, about the kind of relationship I endured, the first question always seems to be Why didn't you just leave? Just Leave. Those words have echoed in my head a million or more times. It isn't easy to explain to anyone, much less someone you love, why you didn't..."Just Leave". It's hard to put into words the explanation of why you stay so long. For me, thirteen months is one of the shorter abusive relationships I've known about. Most stay much longer and twenty YEARS is not unheard of. Many explain it as "a hold". You can't describe the hold in the perfect way most want you to (Because they just want to understand what a seeming intelligent woman (or man) was thinking when they "allowed" themselves to be treated so horridly). Most abusers don't show their true colors at first. Most are very intelligent and talk a smooth game. Drawing you in. Making sure to reassure you that no one could or would ever love you This much for the rest of your life. Abuse begins slowly, so subtly that you really don't realize it is abuse until you are finally out of the relationship looking back. A firmer than neccessary touch, a look, a phrase. Warning signs are overlooked because "No one will ever love you like they do" and they are SO SORRY after something happens. If you didn't burn dinner, if you didn't forget to iron their pants, if you didn't want to go have coffee with your girlfriend, then this would never have happened. So really...this is your fault. And so..it's six months later and suddenly you wake up and you are just like those four women sitting on the Maury Povich stage. You can't have friends. You can't leave the house alone. You can't call your mom cause she's just out to ruin your relationship. And you cry your eyes out because you know it's you, in every pair of crying eyes, it's you. By this time, he is past saying he is sorry. He knows you want to leave. (And in my case..now you are dealing with a high risk pregnancy) He tells you if you leave he will kill your family. He will follow you and burn you alive. If you try and talk and reason, he will kill you and doesn't care "whats in your belly". He doesn't let you work, but calls you lazy and worthless. He calls you ugly, but won't let you go out with him anymore because you are to pretty and guys may hit on you. He can't blow up at work. So he will blow up on you. Because the walls are thick, or maybe they aren't thick, but no body wants to get involved. You cannot leave because he has wittled away every shred of dignity and self worth you ever had. You cannot leave because what if he did come find you. You cannot leave because you are still so naive enough to believe he is that guy he said he was underneath all the "misunderstanding". You cannot leave because abuse is something that happens to everyone else, not to you. You can't believe because you are terrified of your family seeing you as a failure. You cannot leave because you know you will hear "How could you allow yourself to be treated like that, I would never stand for that...." And I know, because I had shouted those same words to the women sitting on the panels who now..were me. Now two years after leaving him, after finding that strength, I can look back and see every tiny clue, every time I should have had enough and left. But to all of those who ask that eternal question. Why didn't you just leave? I remember an old quote I have always liked. "Don't judge me until you walk a mile in my shoes". It's hard to understand what keeps a woman (or man) in that type of relationship. I know. I don't think I will ever be able to explain it fully, because you simply cannot understand something, if you haven't lived it. But maybe..this will help to explain some of it. ~H. |
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