Tag Archives: Fear

Why Can’t We Just Lock Them Up?

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domestic-violence-md-newI was asked the following question in a comment the other day.

“didn’t these people get placed in psych hospitals in the past, so they couldn’t do the damage in society? Now they wander free among us…devouring all that they can.”

I understand what you are saying, Why should they run around destroying people’s lives without any consequences for their actions and the victim is left trying to pick up the pieces of their lives. On top of trying to put their lives back together they also have to be strong enough to remain no contact because the narcissist doesn’t leave them alone. But it isn’t that easy.

They used to burn witches at the stake also and lock people in stockades in the centre of town or behead them. In many third world countries they still stone women for infidelity, or cut off a robber’s hand for stealing.

Unfortunately, the “civilized” world in it’s attempts to be fair and not punish an innocent person; has swung too far the other way in many cases and has made it easier for a narcissist to do what they do. Unfortunately, if we locked up narcissists for hurting people; we would have a lot of victim’s behind bars because the narcissist almost always accuses the victim of the exact crimes he/ she committed. Much of the damage they do is a case of “he said/she said”, and they are careful to cover their tracks because they have a criminal mind and know what they are going to do so plot it very well. The victim is unaware of what the narcissist is doing so does nothing to protect themselves, they are not collecting evidence to prove their innocence whereas the narcissist is building his case the minute he meets the victim.

If we are going to lock a person up because they act crazy, for sure it would be the victim that gets locked up because a narcissist can act the victim and appear sane better than the true victim.

Who would we assign the responsibility of discerning who is lying and who is the victim? While with James I often felt I was living in a courtroom and he was the lawyer defending himself and all he had to do was instill “reasonable doubt” in the jury to be proven innocent. I have often wondered how defense lawyers live with themselves when they know a person is guilty but they get them off on a technicality but I see why the laws have to be that way otherwise we would have to take someone’s word for the fact that the person did what they did with malice and intent to harm. And then one of the big traits of a narcissist is lack of remorse but they can put on an academy performance of being remorseful and guilt ridden.

They can be the epitome of calm and rational, the definition of sanity while the victim is emotional, irrational and appearing the definition of insane. Who do you think they are going to lock up? 

Yes I know we can do brain scans to determine if a person is a psychopath but do we make a law stating that all people must submit to a brain scan and if they have the brain abnormalities of a psychopath do we just lock them up, sterilize them so they can’t reproduce or leave them to rot on a deserted island or in prison? For one thing we don’t have enough prisons to house them all and where do we draw the line? Until there is a crime committed how can we lock people up? Then, if we start to lock up narcissists where does it end? It leaves it wide open for a Hitler type holocaust.

Sure I would love to see them all herded up and put on an island to kill each other off but it isn’t reasonable or civilized. Our prisons are already full of narcissists and it is a huge cost to society to keep them alive in prison but I certainly would not want the responsibility of decided who should live and who should die, Would we kill all narcissists, psychopaths and sociopaths? There are people out there who are admitted psychopaths, like Sam Vaknin and James Fallon; who are admitted psychopaths but doing a lot towards educating people about psychopaths. Not all psychopaths are murderers, yes they are born that way but their upbringing does play a major part in how they function in society as an adult.

It is too ambiguous, too atmospheric, too hard to prove. BUT I DO feel the laws need to change.

I feel that if the police are called out for domestic violence the police should be in control of laying the charges and the woman should have no right to drop the charges. Too often the abuser pressures the woman into dropping the charges, with promises that he will change or threats to her, the kids or her family. it is proven that women do not act in the best interest of the children or her well being, so it has to be taken out of her control. I think that the abuser must be sent for evaluation with an expert on psychopathy and a brain scan be done. For one thing if the abuser is a psychopath no amount of anger management is going to help and many normal therapy actually arms the psychopath with more ways to manipulate. The victim needs to receive immediate support from an expert on domestic abuse and psychopaths, if the abuser is determined to be a psychopath the victim needs to be educated that there is no cure. Right now the victim is handed a bunch of pamphlets and left to their own devices, the abuser is out in a few hours and not enough time goes by for the victim to see things clearly.

Not that I think it is the victim’s fault they were abused but I feel they should be required to attend some support group or counseling also and be taught about what they are dealing with. So far there is no forced education and I really don’t think the victim is in the mindset to make wise choices for herself and her children when she is in the midst of domestic abuse.

I think she needs a team of people who not only educate her on psychopaths but also the resources available to them, I think the government has to provide them with education in order to get better jobs, more money than basic welfare so they can provide for their children. They need life skills coaching, help with becoming independent and regaining their self esteem and also to deal with any issues from their past, abusive in their childhood etc.

I also think there should be an international registry for domestic abuser, not just the ones who have been charged but any complaints should be registered. Who can access it is a problem but I am sure some kind of regulations could be devised so it is not a breach of a person’s  right to privacy. A woman might make a false claim of abuse but if a guy has numerous complaints by different women it is pretty obvious he has issues. If when the police attend a call of domestic violence, they run the guy’s name and there is a history of abuse complaints I think they should inform the woman and how the whole situation is handled needs to be ramped up. 

Would it prevent women from phoning the police because she doesn’t want him to get in trouble? I don’t know, maybe.

How does everyone else feel? What solutions do you, as past victims of abuse; see to  the problem of domestic abuse? What would have helped you get out or not get invovled to begin with?

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A Journey Back In Time And A Glimpse To The Future

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I recently was asked by the Canadian Center for Victims of Violence to write my story of domestic abuse for their monthly newsletter. She explained that the newsletter is read by law enforcement, politicians and other people responsible for change.

I was of course honored to be asked but also felt the pressure of responsibility that I was being given an opportunity to make a difference in the way victims of abuse are viewed. I wanted to show that victims of abuse are not weak, co-dependent and some how responsible for their abuse and that abusers can be someone you would never suspect. I wanted to convey how my cries for help were ignored and how important it is to believe and support victims. The woman who asked me to write the article said it could be 2000 words and if it went longer they would break it up into two parts, one would be published in Sept and the other in Oct. As you all know I can tend to get wordy but thought I could manage to tell my story in 4000 words. 

It took me a couple of weeks of stops and starts, whole days spent trying to find the words only at the end of the day trashing the whole thing and starting over again the next day

I would find myself typing away and having to stop, watch a video or I would have to lay down and take a nap, I started dreaming about James, not night mares just dreams with him in them. I started to feel depressed. I didn’t know where this was coming from, I have been writing about my relationship with James for 3 years without a problem. I was unable to stay on task, I spent days literally typing a paragraph and then napping for an hour, whole days wasted thinking and not accomplishing anything. I started to worry I would never get the article written, nothing flowed. 

I eventually went to the doctor and got anti depressants, something I have avoided for 3 years, but I had to get a handle on this lack of motivation, I have my application for funding to re educate to complete and it requires a lot of time and I hadn’t even started on it. I had two open houses to prepare for, one each of the last two Sundays. I was feeling overwhelmed and I was concerned enough to consider giving up the blog and abandoning my plans for going back to school. 

Then it hit me why I can write here and I couldn’t write one 4000 word article for a publication and it was the same reason I had struggled when I wrote the article for the magazine. When I write for the blog I take an incident and write about an aspect of the relationship, or I am responding to a comment made by someone coming into the blog, someone asks a specific question and I relate my experiences as a way of answering their query. I realized that I have never had to tell my story from start to finish, I have remembered the whole relationship and written about every aspect of the relationship and even had epiphanies while writing here but I have never looked at the relationship in it’s entirety.

When I got to 14,000 words and still was not done telling my story I realized I was in big trouble, no problem I only had to cut it down by 10,000 words!! and I hadn’t even touched on whole segments of my life with James. I wanted to explain the whole relationship in a way that people would really “get it” but you know what? there are no words that can adequately describe what the victim goes through and I need to stop feeling I have to justify why I stayed as long as I did.

On Monday I started to cut it down and by Tuesday I had it down to 9,300 (or something close) words. I stayed up until 3 am Tuesday to get it finished but I got it done. I had relived the whole relationship from the first time I met him, I relived the excited anticipation of our first date, the feelings of love growing and I remembered thinking how lucky I felt, I remembered how strange it felt to sleep with him at first and how after not too long I couldn’t sleep without him and how I thought I could get through anything as long as I could lay my head on his chest at the end of the day. I remembered how for 10 years I got butterflies in my stomach every time I heard his vehicle or saw him pull in the driveway. I remembered how hearing his voice always made me smile even at the worst times. God I loved that man, I thought I knew him inside and out, I thought I knew his passions and what made him happy, I thought he was always going to be in my life and the bad shit I saw was not the real him; I thought I knew the “real” James and the connection was too strong for either one of us to deny. I relived it and let it go.

When I wrote out all the times he screwed around, all the times he demanded I pay him money, the times he threatened me and hit me or destroyed my stuff, the times I woke up and found him sleeping with his face on the keyboard of his laptop because he had been watching porn and fell asleep and another little piece of my soul broke away. And when I thought about all the lies, the horrible soul crushing lies and how he tormented me with blame, shame and gas-lighting, I could finally connect the two men who were one. 

Then I did something I haven’t done for a long time, I went and looked at his picture. i stared at it, I tried to remember what his voice sounded like, how his lips felt, what he smelled like, how his hands felt, I remembered I always loved his hands, hard working big hands that made me feel so safe and in the end threatened my safety. I looked long and hard at the pictures and for the life of me I don’t know what I saw in him, why I thought he was so sexy and good looking. And I looked at a picture of him and Marisa and I really stared at it trying to, I don’t know, see something I missed? What I saw was a woman in love in the early pictures of them and a woman in pain in the last pictures. I know she thought as I did that she had met her soul mate and was so blessed to have found this wonderful man and I am sure she is thinking they will be together forever and no woman has ever loved him like she does and she knows him better than anyone ever has. That destiny brought them together and for better or worse they will always be together. I realized that the man I was looking at was not the James I knew, not the James I met and not the James I left. This James is Marisa’s James, mine is dead. 

After I emailed my article off with a note saying “I know this is 5 x’s longer than it should be and I give you my full permission to edit it all you want, I just can not work on it any longer.” Then at 3:01 am I went in to check my blog activity before I went to bed and there right at the top at 2:57:34 was Powell River and my heart stopped. Just the thought that he was in my blog at that exact time caused a reaction, what was the reaction about? I only knew I wanted to get out of there right now and clicked the screen closed and went to bed. 

The next night I was tired because I was up so late the night before and fell asleep on the couch. I was awakened by Stella barking and realized someone was knocking at the door. I checked the clock, 11:15 pm, my heart was pounding almost out of my chest and I went to the door and asked who it was and they said, “It’s me”. I stepped back from the door and yelled “Who?” and they said “Wayne”. I felt myself exhale and realized I had been holding my breath; and I realized why I had to get out of the blog tracking app and why it was so hard to write about the relationship in it’s entirety. I am truly afraid of him, and the fear comes from not knowing who I was in love with for 10 years, and because I have every reason to be afraid.

I realized, truly saw how dysfunctional the relationship was, and how I tried to make it normal and deal with it normally and how futile it all was. By writing it out in it’s entirety I saw how crazy life had become, the tiny thread of hope I clung to for so long. It didn’t make me sad or angry or fill me with regret; it made me think, “My God you really are strong, how did you survive it? how did you go on day after day?” and I realized how far I have come. And once again I am back in peace with my life and I never took even one of the anti–depressants. 

As things tend to go in life I went into my Facebook for the first time since the end of July when I started writing the article and there was a message from James’s son’s mother. MY heart stopped and I checked it right away, fearing something had happened to James’s son . But they were at a family reunion in a town in BC. i guess they don’t really know BC and didn’t realize they were at least a 12 hour drive from me because she said that James’s son would really like to see me. I felt so bad because the message was over 2 weeks old. I messaged back that I had just gotten the message and she messaged back that they were home now. I told her it would have been too far for me to drive anyway but for sure to give her son a hug for me and if they ever get a little further west to for sure give me a call. 

It was kinda the icing on the cake and was another reason I was glad I was in James’s life, I hate to think what would have happened if I hadn’t been with him when his son came out to live with him. Things happen for a reason, I believe that more than ever,

On another up note, my cabin did not sell and it is the last weekend of the summer so it is unlikely it will sell now until next spring, one day, one month, one year at a time and it just keeps getting better. 

Oh and I got my article back from the woman at Victim’s of Violence with some editing and what she had done made sense and made it easier for me to edit it and we got it done. Her comments:

“I have read over your story in detail now- WOW! Your last copy looked great! “

It ended up being just over 8,000 words and will be printed in its entirety in the Sept newsletter. 

I am very happy with the end results. Thank God for editors!

Playing Russian Roulette With The Devil

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russian roulette woman
Lately it seems every time I turn the TV on there is another true murder mystery where the woman was murdered by her significant other. The last two were on 48 Hours a couple of days ago.

One of the cases took 18 years to solve and they still don’t have a body and in another case they had the legs of one victims and just a skull of another.

The circumstances were different in all the cases, one was the wife of a doctor, another was a hooker and the daughter of the woman, the ages varied but there were two glaring similarities in all every single case.

1. In every single case the woman was swept off her feet by the guy and felt she had met her “soul mate”, he was; too good to be true, treated her like a queen and pressured her to commit and move in together or get married quickly. No matter who voiced concerns about it being too soon the woman was convinced she had met the love of her life.

2. They were murdered just before or after maintaining contact with him after leaving the relationship.

Between meeting and separating the scenario is very much like what we have all experienced. Once the man has the woman “hooked” the mask starts to slip. She finds out that he embellished his past, over stated his income, and he doesn’t have the job or the possessions he professed to have. He borrows a bit of money and pays it back but inevitably he borrows a larger sum and never pays her back, she ends up investing more money into the relationship, he feels entitled. They start to fight about money.

The fights escalate, at first it’s subtle put downs, and then the jealousy starts, she becomes more and more isolated, loses more money, and more and more it becomes clear he is not the man she thought he was when she met him and he has lied about almost everything.

In most of the cases the verbal abuse escalated to physical abuse, which also escalated, In only one case did the abuser leave any evidence of abuse such as bruises.

The only way they were able to solve one case was because the woman had started to dig into her husband’s past and was keeping photo’s of her bruises and evidence of his lies. She had all the evidence she had collected hidden in her closet and the police found it.

I don’t want to be melodramatic, I don’t want to make everyone paranoid and fearful but there is a real disconnect happening with the victims of abuse. Victims become desensitized to the abuse, although they know in their heart that being hit, infidelity, jealous rages, porn addiction,  and the head games narcissists play are wrong; they let it continue. I can only think of one reason this happens; denial.

The victims are hooked on the romance and excitement of the fight and then the reconciliation. I remember how it was, we would fight,(it wouldn’t even be something serious enough to fight about but the simplest of discussions could turn ugly before you know what’s happening) he would storm out with his last words ringing in my ears, “That’s it!! I’m done!!”

I would be angry at first (how did a simple disagreement turn into us breaking up?) but as soon as those words came out of his mouth the panic would set in. I would pace, unable to work or think clearly, food would get stuck in my throat, I would cry uncontrollably, then I couldn’t handle it anymore and I would call him, usually he wouldn’t answer or maybe he would call me and I wouldn’t answer but by the end of the day we would make contact of some sort. Aside from when he was in Africa we talked everyday
Whenever we did talk he would use his “soft” voice and ask how I was. I would say not very good and he would ask if I’d eaten. I would so no and he would tell me to meet him or he would pick me up. If I said I wasn’t hungry he would say, “You have to eat”.
When we saw each other he would be loving, call me “Babe”, pull me close, kiss me and say I love you. We wouldn’t talk about the fight I would just be so happy we weren’t fighting.

It was addicting, romantic, when he looked into my eyes and whispered he loved me and pulled me close it was the best feeling in the world. I remember thinking, “As long as I am in his arms, as long as we have “this” we will be ok, I will be ok”.

I knew it was unhealthy, the fights were crazy, nothing was ever resolved, he was doing things I knew no other woman would tolerate and if I had a friend in a relationship like that I would have told her she was crazy (in fact I had on several occasions, my g/f’s boy friends always hated me because I was no-nonsense. They would stand their ground and the guy would say, “You’ve talked to Carrie again haven’t you?”).

He set things up so he could “rescue” me. I got used to ignoring my gut instincts and making excuses for his behavior. The fact that he disabled my vehicles or that I could predict when he would “injure” himself should have had me running for the hills but I started viewing these things as signs that he loved me and didn’t want to lose me; scary thought processes. I also got hooked on solving the mystery, figuring out what he was up to now; it was like living in a game of Clue only he was the only one committing the crime I just had to figure out what exactly he was doing and with who.

Denial was easy really because if I told anyone what I suspected they thought I was crazy, police didn’t believe me, my best girl friend at the time didn’t believe me; she said that any time she heard him talking about me all he did was brag about my cooking and say how much he loved me. She had seen him bringing me home flowers at least once a week

One of the many times we were split and we’d had a huge fight the night before. I went out to go to work in the morning and he is under my truck doing something. I immediately got that feeling in my stomach and asked him what he was doing under there. He climbed out and said something about he thought he saw something hanging down and then he said, “Get in and pop the hood would ya?” I did, and the time I am thinking, “What is he doing, why did I pop the hood.” he fiddled around under the hood for a while and then closed it. I asked what he was doing and I don’t remember what he said now, I knew nothing about mechanical things back then. I have gotten smarter out of necessity.

I pushed the feeling of doom down and we talked, like nothing had ever happened and he said he would call me later. I went to my first job, kinda surprised that my truck didn’t break down. I went to leave my first job and I had no power steering or brakes. It was nothing short of a miracle that it didn’t happen when I was driving because I probably would have had an accident. If it would have let go on a hilly curvy road I could have died. I had a guy check it out for me and he said the brake line had worn through, when I asked him if someone could have done it on purpose he gave me a strange look and I thought, “yeah , I am just being paranoid.”

There was the time we had another huge fight and were still fighting in the morning. He called later that day and asked if I needed anything from the grocery store, I gave him a short list of things we needed. I got home and there was a very sweet loving letter on the table from him saying he wanted Kris and I to go with him to pick up cars and he would buy us supper. It struck me very strange because he had said nothing to me about it on the phone, he hated Kris and Kris hated him and why hadn’t he just called me and asked me to go with him; why would he go back home and leave the letter where he knew I wouldn’t see it until it was too late? A bit later he called and said he didn’t want to come into the park and could I meet him at the gate and pick up the groceries. I thought he meant the gate to the resort so I walked up, he called me pissed off because I was taking so long, I told him I was at the gate and where was he. He was really pissed off and yelled that he hadn’t meant the gate to the resort, he had meant the gate to where he was doing some side work. It was on the other side of the railway tracks and the only thing on the other side was a lumber mill and the river. When I was almost there the train went flying by and I got immediately sick to my stomach. As the train passed I looked across the tracks and saw the bags of groceries by the tracks and him outside his vehicle by the gate which was quite a distance from the tracks. I started putting the groceries into the trunk of the car and he never came to help me, he just stood there watching me with a look that totally nullified the loving nature of the letter he left on the table. When I got home and started putting the groceries away there was absolutely none of the things I had asked for in the bags.

A couple of days later I came home early and could hear him rummaging through the cupboards and throwing things around.

I don’t want to get side tracked and have written about this before, so I’ve put the links to what happened next below if you are interested.

http://wp.me/s1wKh3-ambushed
http://wp.me/p1wKh3-sI
 
http://wp.me/p1wKh3-t1

The point I am trying to make is this;
We get so desensitized to danger and so used to the erratic behavior and mood swings we don’t listen to our nature instincts that are screaming danger!!

Like I have said many times, I am no better than anyone here, in fact probably a lot worse than many people who come here; for being weak and accepting behavior I should have walked away from years before. But I have to point out the dangerous game women play when they keep going back to the narcissist/psychopath. It is like playing russian roulette; how many times can you go back before he cracks. I started praying he would kill me just to stop the madness.

Narcissists are vindictive, they do not own a conscience, and they hate rejection; the perfect traits for a murderer but what do we do? We taunt him, we break up with him, go no contact and he calls and text messages for weeks and either he gives up or we give in. He tells us he loves us, lavishes attention on us and we know in our gut it is wrong but we go back and the abuse starts again and we do the same dance over and over and over with no thought about when he might reach his breaking point.

I am sure these women who were killed by their soon to be ex or ex N didn’t think the meeting was going to end in their murder. In one instance it was their anniversary, they exchanged cards, he spent the night and the next morning stabbed her 37 times.

I watched Sam Vaknin’s video about giving the Narcissist a second chance and he said what I have said all along. They come back to see if they can. If you take them back they won and the mask falls almost immediately and the abuse worse because he knows he has the victim. He has no respect for her whatsoever and views her as weak and he does not respect weakness in the least. He abhors weakness.

If he has to work at winning the victim back, if she has moved on and is doing well without him he takes it as a personal insult; how dare she succeed without him. Then he wins her over to make her pay for insulting him; he sets out to destroy her.

Either way he loathes you and wants to make you pay.

rhaisson pull trigger

Don’t taunt the devil!! Make your break and stay away, go no contact and stay no contact. I consider myself very lucky to have survived all the times I taunted the devil.

Cognitive Dissonance and the Victim of Abuse

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The following is taken from an article written by

Joseph M. Carver, Ph.D., Clinical PsychologistImage

“Cognitive Dissonance” explains how and why people change their ideas and opinions to support situations that do not appear to be healthy, positive, or normal. In the theory, an individual seeks to reduce information or opinions that make him or her uncomfortable. When we have two sets of cognitions (knowledge, opinion, feelings, input from others, etc.) that are the opposite, the situation becomes emotionally uncomfortable. Even though we might find ourselves in a foolish or difficult situation – few want to admit that fact. Instead, we attempt to reduce the dissonance – the fact that our cognitions don’t match, agree, or make sense when combined. “Cognitive Dissonance” can be reduced by adding new cognitions – adding new thoughts and attitudes. Some examples:

  • Heavy smokers know smoking causes lung cancer and multiple health risks. To continue smoking, the smoker changes his cognitions (thoughts/feelings) such as 1) “I’m smoking less than ten years ago”, 2) “I’m smoking low-tar cigarettes”, 3) “Those statistics are made up by the cancer industry conspiracy”, or 4) “Something’s got to get you anyway!” These new cognitions/attitudes allow them to keep smoking and actually begin blaming restaurants for being unfair.
  • You purchase a $40,000.00 Sport Utility Vehicle that gets 8 miles a gallon. You justify the expense and related issues with 1) “It’s great on trips (you take one trip per year)”, 2) “I can use it to haul stuff (one coffee table in 12 months), and 3) “You can carry a lot of people in it (95% of your trips are driver-only).”
  • Your husband/boyfriend becomes abusive and assaultive. You can’t leave due to the finances, children, or other factors. Through cognitive dissonance, you begin telling yourself “He only hits me open-handed” and “He’s had a lot of stress at work.”

Leon Festinger first coined “Cognitive Dissonance”. He had observed a cult (1956) in which members gave up their homes, incomes, and jobs to work for the cult. This cult believed in messages from outer space that predicted the day the world would end by a flood. As cult members and firm believers, they believed they would be saved by flying saucers at the appointed time. As they gathered and waited to be taken by flying saucers at the specified time, the end-of-the-world came and went. No flood and no flying saucer! Rather than believing they were foolish after all that personal and emotional investment – they decided their beliefs had actually saved the world from the flood and they became firmer in their beliefs after the failure of the prophecy. The moral – the more you invest (income, job, home, time, effort, etc.) the stronger your need to justify your position. If we invest $5.00 in a raffle ticket, we justify losing with “I’ll get them next time”. If you invest everything you have, it requires an almost unreasoning belief and unusual attitude to support and justify that investment.

Studies tell us we are more loyal and committed to something that is difficult, uncomfortable, and even humiliating. The initiation rituals of college fraternities, Marine boot camp, and graduate school all produce loyal and committed individuals. Almost any ordeal creates a bonding experience. Every couple, no matter how mismatched, falls in love in the movies after going through a terrorist takeover, being stalked by a killer, being stranded on an island, or being involved in an alien abduction. Investment and an ordeal are ingredients for a strong bonding – even if the bonding is unhealthy. No one bonds or falls in love by being a member of the Automobile Club or a music CD club. Struggling to survive on a deserted island – you bet!

Abusive relationships produce a great amount on unhealthy investment in both parties. In many cases we tend to remain and support the abusive relationship due to our investment in the relationship. Try telling a new Marine that since he or she has survived boot camp, they should now enroll in the National Guard! Several types of investments keep us in the bad relationship:

  • Emotional Investment – We’ve invested so many emotions, cried so much, and worried so much that we feel we must see the relationship through to the finish.
  • Social Investment – We’ve got our pride! To avoid social embarrassment and uncomfortable social situations, we remain in the relationship.
  • Family Investments – If children are present in the relationship, decisions regarding the relationship are clouded by the status and needs of the children.
  • Financial Investment – In many cases, the controlling and abusive partner has created a complex financial situation. Many victims remain in a bad relationship, waiting for a better financial situation to develop that would make their departure and detachment easier.
  • Lifestyle Investment – Many controlling/abusive partners use money or a lifestyle as an investment. Victims in this situation may not want to lose their current lifestyle.
  • Intimacy Investment – We often invest emotional and sexual intimacy. Some victims have experienced a destruction of their emotional and/or sexual self-esteem in the unhealthy relationship. The abusing partner may threaten to spread rumors or tell intimate details or secrets. A type of blackmail using intimacy is often found in these situations.

In many cases, it’s not simply our feelings for an individual that keeps us in an unhealthy relationship – it’s often the amount of investment. Relationships are complex and we often only see the tip of the iceberg in public. For this reason, the most common phrase offered by the victim in defense of their unhealthy relationship is “You just don’t understand!”

Out the Darkness He Still Creeps

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Its been a long time and I hesitate to even mention it for fear he still lurks here and will see that he got to me vicariously again but it is part of the process I suppose and something perhaps others want to know. How long will he haunt me?

Well its been 2 years, 3 1/2 months and in he walked into my dreams like nothing had ever happened, smiling that sheepish grin he used to get when he knew he was being a “bad boy” the grin that I used to tell myself was his way of showing me he couldn’t control his desire for me, love for me, or whatever it was that made me keep going back. It was a grin that melted my hardest resolve and took away my voice and he knew exactly what he was doing.

Last night he was there just like so many times in the past, professing his love, me telling him to just go away and him telling me to “just let things happen as they should”, didn’t I know he would be back? Didn’t he tell me I would do better without him? So am I supposed to be grateful he left me? I suppose. Grateful for the years of heartache, lies and eventual vicious discard. Sorry, no, I don’t thank him for that and never will. I told him last night that he had no right to come now professing a love that never existed just when I am getting by on my own and am happy.

Then he kissed me and when I put my hands up to push against his chest he took my hand and slid a ring on my finger. He refused to let me speak and just said, ‘Don’t say anything, just wear it, no one has to know where you got it; only we will know. Just wear it for me.”

Then he disappeared, faded into black and I woke up and checked my finger, no ring. relief.

But all day I half expected to see him, I thought I saw him driving a semi through town, he was on my mind more than usual and yes I checked his facebook and he has unhidden his profile. He had it hidden for a long time and I haven’t checked in so long I don’t know when he unblocked me. I hate that I checked and I hate that now I wonder why he unblocked me, was he checking on me? probably.

I had his sister come out for the weekend a couple of weeks ago. They have barely talked since he made her miss her daughters wedding, in fact his whole family has seen or heard very little from him since he got with M. But Denise was on the skytrain on her way to meet me when he called her. He was in Vancouver on his way up the coast and he had missed his ferry and did she want to go for coffee. She said, “You aren’t going to believe this but am on my way to sped the weekend with Carrie. She said he barely missed a beat but there was a definite silence before he said, “Oh well, good for you, have a good time.”

Sometimes I think there must be a higher power controlling little things like that, those coincidences. I didn’t ask if he was still with M and neither did Denise. We had a great weekend and I really haven’t thought much about it until last night.

Where the hell did he come from? and why? I know it is my own head so why now would I dream a dream like that? I didn’t wake up in a sweat like I used to or crying. I got up and went on with my very busy day and then I got home and had the stereo on and that song “I Set Fire to the Rain” came on and all of a sudden I was crying, sobbing. Kato stopped licking his balls and looked at me like he was saying, “What’s up? you haven’t cried like this is ages”. I laughed and said, “Its ok buddy, I’m fine, ……….. really.” So he went back to licking his balls.

Why was I crying? I’ll tell you why. Because the son of a bitch, ass hole, bottom feeder hurt me, manipulated me with my love for him, the bastard screwed around on me, lied, conned, blamed, physically abused me all in the name of “love” and it hurts damnit!! I am not healed, I wouldn’t wear his ring if he had appeared at my door but I think more than him coming to me it was my mind warning me.

You see, I have another post started about why I stopped seeing C and will leave those details for another post but I was trying to maintain a friendship due to working together and I nipped it in the bud early enough there really should be no hard feelings. Its not that I know he is an N, I don’t know that, I wasn’t dating him long enough to know that, I just know I was uncomfortable about a few things.

Its strange because Kato had been wanting to spend the night with him all the time and then the day I really felt I needed to remove myself from the situation Kato followed me every where like my shadow and made certain I didn’t leave him behind.

Then last night I had stopped at the shop after work to let the dogs run free around the yard. C’s dog was in his dad’s truck and Laila was trying to get in the truck at her. I was giving Laila shit mainly because she was getting muddy paw prints all over the truck. Then C’s dad came out to move his truck and said something to the effect, “I’ll run the brain dead bitch over.” I went to reach for Laila and she growled at me, I slapped her snout and told her not to growl at me and she ducked under the truck. I reached for her and she darted out the other side, by now she was in a real frenzy and C was trying to grab her and I backed off because we were getting no where, she was just getting more worked up.

Then I see C has a 2×4 in his hands and he is swinging at her trying to hit her, then he is poking it in her face and she is really losing it now and I am yelled at him to put the frickin 2×4 down. I ran to the truck and opened the door and called laila and she ran and jumped in. C said she was out of control and it was necessary and I said a 2×4 was NOT necessary and I left.

Tonight he sent a text saying “Can’t fight with you over it I apologize to you cause you feel what I did was wrong. I knew she needed to know she was losing it like she does but needed to be snapped out of it”

My reply was, “All I could see was you losing control and hitting her with a 2×4. At that point I just wanted her out of danger. I have never said anything about you disciplining her before because I felt it was appropriately done, for the crime at the time. I felt you lost control and that scares me.”

his reply, “I did not lose control. I knew the situation needed to snap her out of her rage the she gets going.”

Me –  “So you aren’t sorry. That means it would happen again. |You have every right to feel you were right to do what you did but to me it is no small issue. I would rather hold her while she is put to sleep than to have her beaten with a 2×4. The only thing she learns from that is more aggression and fear. I suppose some people call that respect; but fear has nothing to do with respect. The next time she sees someone with a 2×4 will she attack them? She was growling horribly last night when you approached the truck. That bothers me. I am reading up on what to do with aggressive dogs and no where yet has anyone suggested beating them.

He has sent 3 more text messages defending his actions and I have not responded because I won’t defend my right to decide how my dog is treated. His response was so N-like, not sorry just sorry I was being un reasonable. Well guess what? I don’t care what he thinks.

And I think JC paid me a visit last night to remind me how it felt to be beaten down and put in my place. When I saw Laila snapping and lunging at the 2×4 I was reminded of how I felt when I was cornered, scared, and trying to fight back but knowing I was going to lose. if A person can do it to a dog because they “needed to be controlled or snap out of it” then they will do it to a person.

Thanks JC for stopping by last night, just don’t make a habit of it ok? next time I just might bite back.

Hugs everyone

life is good

Carrie

 

One Hundred Years of Domestic Abuse

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My Grandma Mary died a couple of weeks ago at the age of 93. I have started numerous posts in an attempt to commemorate her near century on this earth but haven’t finished any of them.

She was a sweet woman, whose quiet demeanor belied her strength.

The things that stand out in my memory are silly little things like how she ironed everything, towels, sheets, t-shirts, everything!! How she would wash and wax the floor and then lay out  newspapers over the floor and my cousin and I running through the house, hitting that newspaper and landing on our asses, arms and legs flailing. The plastic was still on the furniture and lamps and scraps of carpet made a pathway throughout the house to protect the carpet. My cousin and I spent many hours in the forest around her house and without fail we were given the same warning, “Watch out for ticks” I still don’t know what a tick looks like but when I go in the forest I am on the lookout for one.

My mom and Grandma were very close, Grandma divorced her first husband and as it turned out; her and my mom married brothers and got pregnant 8 months apart so my cousin and I were very close and my mom and I spent a lot of time at my grandma’s. She would come over and help my mom clean house and starch the doilies with a sugary concoction. Grandma was happiest if she was cleaning. She never watched TV and no one was real sure if she knew how to read.

From what I gather she was quite the looker when she was younger and would go dancing with her sisters. My mom remembers watching her mom getting dressed to go dancing in pretty dresses, her tiny waist cinched in, gloves, and high heels.

While walking at Cultus Lake years ago we walked past the old Pavillion and she told me how she had danced there during Prohibition with the soldiers.

In recent years she was lost in dementia sliding farther and farther into her own world, it was horribly sad for my mom to go visit her; then one day the old age home had a band come in to play old dance tunes and my mom noticed grandma’s feet keeping time to the music. When they started to play a jive mom asked grandma if she wanted to dance and she said it was like she was with her mom 30 years earlier dancing in the kitchen. Grandma danced like a young woman and didn’t miss a beat. It was the last time there was any recognition there.

My grandma was always very good to me, she helped me buy my first house, a little cabin at Cultus Lake, I had asked to borrow $2000 but she said to consider it my Christmas gifts for the next 5 years and then proceeded to give me money every Christmas anyway. Whenever we had a gathering Grandma was there and without fail I would hear her saying to someone, “Isn’t she a doll? that’s my granddaughter, isn’t she beautiful, such a good girl, she’s always been so good to me.” she’d call me over and pat my arm and say,”We never fought did we dear?” I’d say of course not Grandma. She’d say, “A doll, an angel, I tell you, just beautiful.” One Christmas at my mom’s I was sitting beside grandma and she was telling the room what a doll I was and with every second word she patted my leg with her bony little hand. Her diamond ring was much too large on her tiny finger and the diamond dug deep into my leg with every pat and after a while it started to really hurt. Finally I grabbed her hand and said, “Grandma, hit me one more time with your diamond and you’ll lose your hand.” She looked at me and said, “A doll, such an angel.”

There was something about Grandma not many people knew and it was never talked about. Her first husband was a horribly violent man and treated grandma and my mom like hired hands, he beat my grandma and other horrific things that were never talked about. In those days domestic violence wasn’t talked about or even acknowledged. My grandma had a nervous breakdown, no doubt because of the mind games these assholes use to keep you off-balance; and was sent to a mental institute called Crease Clinic where she was subjected to shock treatment. I can only imagine the horrors she experienced and then had to go home to worse abuse. Even though she had no money, and there was no help from police, or support groups, she didn’t drive, she knew she had to get away. My mom remembers grandma taking her and running into a nearby corn field and hiding for hours. They could hear grandpa looking for them as they hunkered down in the corn field barely able to breathe, knowing if he found them there would be hell to pay. Finally the sun went down, he gave up his search and they snuck out of the corn field and walked miles to my granny’s house where they hid in the attic.

I never understood the strength that must have taken until I experienced abuse and the feeling of helplessness. How scared she must have been, in those days domestic violence was something that no one talked about and if you did try to talk about it you ended up in a mental institution getting shock treatment.

Her second husband was alcoholic but I don’t think he beat her and she stayed with him until he died in his sleep of a heart attack in the bed beside her.

We have come along way since my grandma hid in a corn field but we still have a lot of work to do in the battle against domestic abuse, there are still myths to be dispelled, stereotypes to be corrected, and silence to be broken. For every women who has feared for her life, for every woman who has been told she asked for the abuse or deserved it, for every woman who has died at the hands of the man who promised to always protect her, for every woman who hid the marks on her neck or wore sunglasses to hide a black eye, for every woman and child that lived in fear of daddy coming home, for every child who has witnessed their mother being beaten and felt helpless to stop it, for every woman who has been told it isn’t abuse if there are no bruises I will keep speaking out.

I ask you all to end the silence, silence = shame, silence enables the abuser. In 2010 there were over 102,500 reports of domestic violence (that is just the reported cases) of those incidents 51% of the victims suffered physical injuries.

In the past decade more than half, 65 %, of spouses accused of homicide had a history of violence involving the victim and most of them were after the victim had left the abuser. That is why it is so important to report, charge and not minimize the abuse.

Even the victims minimize the abuse, question themselves, and believe they are special and it won’t happen to them. The really shameful thing is that women partake in the abuse of other women, so needy for a man’s attention they believe his lies that the woman asked for it and he won’t abuse her because she is special, her love has changed him. Wake up people! What is it going to take for society to recognize abuse and shame the abuser and not the victim? When are we going to start raising our daughters to believe they are beautiful from the inside out, that their worth is not decided by a man and they deserve respect? When will our sons be taught that infidelity is not a birth right, that a woman’s place is not in the home catering to his every whim and that a woman cries because she is hurt and not because she is manipulating him, that when a woman says, “That hurts me” , stop! When will people realize that “I’m ok you’re ok” does not mean accept me as I am and if you don’t there’s the door and when will the victim realize that given that choice they should walk out that door and they will survive and thrive. When will women stop asking for respect and accept nothing less than respect for their boundaries?

This is not something that doesn’t affect you, it affects everyone because it is a problem with society, this is not “her” problem, it isn’t “his” problem, it is “our” problem.

Rest in peace Grandma Mary

Love and hugs to my little angel.

Carrie