This entry isn't exactly graphic, but if you are not comfortable hearing about sexual abuse/rape, please skip this one.
Unfortunately my sexuality suffered a huge blow under my abusive ex, and has been very slow to heal. He was my first sexual partner, and I don't remember ever having enjoyed sex with him. It was very obvious that our sexual relationship was all for him - the only reason he ever did anything was to give himself pleasure, even if it was disguised as something for me to enjoy. As time went on, he went to more and more extreme lengths to get off. In the beginning, I was so eager to please him, and I willingly did a lot of things I didn't want to, to that end. But after awhile it was all just a sense of obligation and fear. I hated having sex with him. They way he would talk to me, how he looked at me, it just disgusted me. I was fully aware that he was sleeping around with other women (and I didn't find out until later, but other men as well). But I was supposed to be the dutiful wife, doing whatever it took to please my man, and he did everything he could to push me to do that. There were things, especially toward the end of the marriage, that he tried to push me into doing, and attempted to physically force upon me, most of which I was able to get out of. As the marriage came to an end, things got infinitely worse. I finally started to stand up for myself and say no to him. I'm sure you can guess how well that went over. Every time we had sex after that point was an act of rape, in one way or another. The first few times he acted sorry, but obviously wasn't. He didn't even bother with the act after that. After we had separated, the physical and sexual violence continued to worsen. Over time, I started to be able to take the physical violence to a degree. Of course it was still terrifying, but his threats of violence, and relatively minor beatings didn't phase me. He would threaten to hit me if I didn't give in to him sexually, and I would take it. I was so tired of backing down from him. He was very intuitive where the abuse was concerned, and figured out right quick that rape was a very effective tactic. It took 2 forms, mainly. Sometimes he would threaten extreme physical violence if I didn't give in to him. I knew he was capable of it under the right circumstances, and sometimes I would give in. Other times, he didn't bother with that, and would just physically force me. One of his favorite ways to do this was to come into the house while I was sleeping, and I would wake up to find him on me. I slept in the same room as my kids, so he knew I wouldn't make a big scene over it, for fear of them waking up and seeing what was happening.
To anyone who has not experienced domestic violence, I'm sure all of this seems absurd. Why would I allow this to happen to me, why didn't I do something about it? I did try. Police were less than receptive. Even after I had a restraining order, when I would call , they would usually just tell him to leave. After my current SO and I were dating, my ex raped me for the last time. My SO called the police for me. They talked to my ex first, and allowed him into my house while they were talking to me. The police officers told me that my story wasn't believable (why would a husband need to rape his wife, after all) , and that what they thought had happened was the sex was consensual, and I told my boyfriend it was rape so that he wouldn't get angry with me. They warned me against making false police reports(!), and let him go on his merry way. They didn't even include my side of the story in the police report, or the fact that I had a protective order, so he shouldn't have been at my house in the first place. (Remind me why I don't trust the police again!)
I find myself falling into old habits with my SO, often. Through no fault of his own, I am afraid of him sexually. I hate to be touched most of the time. I don't want him to desire me. He asks me why I don't wear makeup or try to make myself look nice anymore, and I think that is why. If I am not attractive to him, maybe he'll leave me alone (for the record, its not working). He tries to be understanding, but really, how much can you expect from a guy? To him, what goes on in the bedroom is just play, its not real. But I am unable to interpret it in that way. Much of what he does I find as threatening - I don't choose how to react, my body just does it.
I've been in therapy, but this has only gotten worse as time goes on. I don't know how to heal, how to make this part of my life better. Sexuality is supposed to be one of the enjoyable aspects of human existence. Instead, it has become like torture to me. I don't have much hope that this will even completely go away. My fears and feelings over this are killing my current relationship. We both spend a lot of time being upset, because he can't understand why I react in the way I do, and I can't make this go away.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Monday, September 8, 2008
No Sense in being Rational
There are some days that those feelings of being unsafe come back with a vengeance. Usually, it is nothing in particular that brings them back, a stray thought, a glimpse of someone on the street that reminds me of him in the slightest of ways. Tonight, I don't know what it was. But here I find myself, long after my family has gone to bed for the night, searching every place I can find online for any trace of me or my kids. Because I know if he decides to find us, he will search high and low. And if I can find it with a search or two online, I know full well that he will be able to find it. I put up such a brave front most of the time. But in all honesty, I am afraid. He is in prison for 2 years more, but the day will come when he is released, and I do have to think about what we will do then.
Maybe we will get lucky, and he will disappear off the face of the earth, and never bother us again. Or maybe my life will become a living hell again. Maybe he will snatch my children off the street, or be waiting for me outside my house when I come home. All the maybes are unlikely, but even that small chance is enough to make me worry for the next 2+ years.
I think a lot about what we will do when he is released. We will be notified ahead of time, and know where he is going, who his parole officer will be, what the terms of his parole will be. But that is no guarantee of anything. He really has no reason to come back here, unless he has the intention of looking for me and the kids. In my head, I know the best thing to do will be to go about our lives as normally as possible, and at most, be a little more watchful. But I am afraid, and I want to run and hide away with my family, somewhere where he never will find us, at least for a little while.
I used to be afraid everywhere I went, before he was locked up. Those fears are already coming back to me, even though his release is 2 years away. What would I do, how would I react if I ran into him in the mall or the grocery store, or in a parking lot somewhere? What should I do? What if he shows up at the kids' school, or outside my door? I don't have an answer for that, any of it. I suppose I won't until it happens. And I'll just have to hope until then that it never does.
All the fear and the worry just allows for him to continue to screw up my life. I have not seen him in more than 3 years now, and my life is so much better than it was then. And yet, the damage he did is still here. And I don't see it going anywhere, anytime soon.
Maybe we will get lucky, and he will disappear off the face of the earth, and never bother us again. Or maybe my life will become a living hell again. Maybe he will snatch my children off the street, or be waiting for me outside my house when I come home. All the maybes are unlikely, but even that small chance is enough to make me worry for the next 2+ years.
I think a lot about what we will do when he is released. We will be notified ahead of time, and know where he is going, who his parole officer will be, what the terms of his parole will be. But that is no guarantee of anything. He really has no reason to come back here, unless he has the intention of looking for me and the kids. In my head, I know the best thing to do will be to go about our lives as normally as possible, and at most, be a little more watchful. But I am afraid, and I want to run and hide away with my family, somewhere where he never will find us, at least for a little while.
I used to be afraid everywhere I went, before he was locked up. Those fears are already coming back to me, even though his release is 2 years away. What would I do, how would I react if I ran into him in the mall or the grocery store, or in a parking lot somewhere? What should I do? What if he shows up at the kids' school, or outside my door? I don't have an answer for that, any of it. I suppose I won't until it happens. And I'll just have to hope until then that it never does.
All the fear and the worry just allows for him to continue to screw up my life. I have not seen him in more than 3 years now, and my life is so much better than it was then. And yet, the damage he did is still here. And I don't see it going anywhere, anytime soon.
Friday, April 25, 2008
Adam
I miss you. More than I can make sense of to myself. We were not close, not anymore. But it has been over a year now that you've been gone, and I still think about you and miss you every single day. I have a lot of regrets, about the time we spent together, and the time that we didn't. I loved you, not in a romantic way, and it hurts that I can never tell you that. I did not reach out to you when I had the chance. I never told you how much I appreciated you, how proud I was of who you had become. Now, I don't know what to do with all the feelings I have bottled up inside of me. I have never believed in heaven, or an afterlife, but there is a part of me now that hopes that there is one, so that I can know that you are safe and happy somewhere beyond this world. I miss you my friend, more than I can ever say.
Friday, January 25, 2008
non-Physical Abuse
I belong to an online Domestic Violence Support Group. Another member recently asked the group to share their experiences of verbal abuse. Below is my response. I wanted to put it up here, because I think it explains a lot about what the life of an abused woman is like (or at least, what it was like for me), outside of the physical abuse. The truth is, the physical abuse is only a small part of the big picture, but that is the part that is most recognized in media, etc. I could add a lot more to what I wrote, about how my life was for those years, but I didn't want to make it any longer than it already is.
"I am a survivor of emotional, verbal, physical and sexual abuse. While the physical wounds heal, the physical and sexual abuse are really just another tool they use to further the emotional abuse - the hitting isn't about the physical wounds they can cause, it is about putting them in control, breaking us down emotionally, making us afraid. And physical/sexual abuse rarely happens by itself, and is normally not the first kind of abuse the abuser will use. If the victim is not broken down by the verbal and emotional abuse, they probably wouldn't stand for the physical and sexual abuse. When people say that they would rather have the physical abuse than the verbal/emotional, I really feel they don't understand what someone like me has gone through. The emotional effects of the physical and sexual violence have been very tough to deal with going forward - it is impossible for me to have a "normal" relationship with my current partner, because sex and being touched and things like that are a nightmare for me. It is not the physical violence itself that is at issue, it is the emotional effects of the physical/sexual violence that are long-lasting, in much the same way as those of the emotional/verbal abuse. I am not meaning to come down on anyone for the things they have said, or in any way minimize the horrible damage done by emotional and verbal abuse - I understand the toll this kind of abuse takes, I was a victim of it as well. I just feel that it is important for others here to understand what I and other women like me have been through, and that different kinds of abuse do not exist in a vacuum, they are interconnected. When a woman says to me that her husband isn't that bad, because he is only verbally/emotionally abusive and controlling, women need to understand that it is not the case that physical abusers are a totally different kind of animal - they are just at a different point on the continuum and could move to the level of physical violence under the right circumstances (and yes, all of us have said that he would never do that, if we believed he would, we would never have gotten involved with him)
As far as emotional/verbal abuse goes:
I was terrorized by my ex, constantly kept on my toes - he was so unpredictable. Nothing I ever did was right. Everything bad that ever happened was my fault in one way or another. I was a whore - everything I did was for the direct purpose of cheating on him. Telemarketer calls or wrong numbers were just a sneaky way for me to talk with my many boyfriends, according to him. There were so many rules about what I was to do and not do, and they were always changing, and no matter how hard I tried to follow them, he would always find some way I slipped up, or change the rules on me again. I was stupid (he used to tell me I was the stupidest smart person he ever met - I have an IQ of 160, enough college units to get my masters degree), I was a horrible mother, I was an awful wife, I couldn't keep house, I couldn't cook, I couldn't drive right, iron his clothes correctly, and on and on. I was the reason his friends wouldn't come around, that his latest mistress broke up with him, that he was passed over again for a promotion. All my friends and family were just trying to poison me against him and control my life, it was none of their business what went on in our household. Threats were made against my friends, family, and any man I ever got involved with (after the marraige was over). Everything I did was to try to ruin his life, or make him look bad. Even after I left him, he would show up at my house or my job or my friends houses, spy on me, read my mail/email, check the caller ID on my phone. I had to account for every minute of my time - if I didn't show up at home until 5 minutes later than usual after work, I must have been out fooling around (this is 2 years after I left the jerk!). He would threaten to kill or hurt himself, and say it was my fault, that everyone would blame me. He spread rumors about me among the moms at my kids school and among our mutual friends - that he was the caring, devoted father and husband, and I was a whore running around with men while he took care of our kids. He used scripture from the Bible to try to show me what an awful person I was and that I was going to hell.
Threats of physical violence and sexual assault were constant, and much more common than actual violence. I was constantly told that he was going to kill me, run away with my kids. And when that happened, no one would bother to show up to my funeral because no one gave a damn what happened to me. Usually physical/sexual violence was used if the emotional abuse/terrorizing/manipulation didn't work. After raping me he would tell me what a dead f**k I was was, how much all his other girls enjoyed having sex with him, etc. He delighted in telling me how inadequate I was sexually, how awful my body was (I am 5'7" and weighed 110lbs or less at that time). But as awful as I was physically, that was all any man would ever want of me.
Jeez, I haven't thought about a lot of this stuff in quite awhile. It helps to remember sometimes, so I can see how far I've come since then, and remember why it has been so tough."
"I am a survivor of emotional, verbal, physical and sexual abuse. While the physical wounds heal, the physical and sexual abuse are really just another tool they use to further the emotional abuse - the hitting isn't about the physical wounds they can cause, it is about putting them in control, breaking us down emotionally, making us afraid. And physical/sexual abuse rarely happens by itself, and is normally not the first kind of abuse the abuser will use. If the victim is not broken down by the verbal and emotional abuse, they probably wouldn't stand for the physical and sexual abuse. When people say that they would rather have the physical abuse than the verbal/emotional, I really feel they don't understand what someone like me has gone through. The emotional effects of the physical and sexual violence have been very tough to deal with going forward - it is impossible for me to have a "normal" relationship with my current partner, because sex and being touched and things like that are a nightmare for me. It is not the physical violence itself that is at issue, it is the emotional effects of the physical/sexual violence that are long-lasting, in much the same way as those of the emotional/verbal abuse. I am not meaning to come down on anyone for the things they have said, or in any way minimize the horrible damage done by emotional and verbal abuse - I understand the toll this kind of abuse takes, I was a victim of it as well. I just feel that it is important for others here to understand what I and other women like me have been through, and that different kinds of abuse do not exist in a vacuum, they are interconnected. When a woman says to me that her husband isn't that bad, because he is only verbally/emotionally abusive and controlling, women need to understand that it is not the case that physical abusers are a totally different kind of animal - they are just at a different point on the continuum and could move to the level of physical violence under the right circumstances (and yes, all of us have said that he would never do that, if we believed he would, we would never have gotten involved with him)
As far as emotional/verbal abuse goes:
I was terrorized by my ex, constantly kept on my toes - he was so unpredictable. Nothing I ever did was right. Everything bad that ever happened was my fault in one way or another. I was a whore - everything I did was for the direct purpose of cheating on him. Telemarketer calls or wrong numbers were just a sneaky way for me to talk with my many boyfriends, according to him. There were so many rules about what I was to do and not do, and they were always changing, and no matter how hard I tried to follow them, he would always find some way I slipped up, or change the rules on me again. I was stupid (he used to tell me I was the stupidest smart person he ever met - I have an IQ of 160, enough college units to get my masters degree), I was a horrible mother, I was an awful wife, I couldn't keep house, I couldn't cook, I couldn't drive right, iron his clothes correctly, and on and on. I was the reason his friends wouldn't come around, that his latest mistress broke up with him, that he was passed over again for a promotion. All my friends and family were just trying to poison me against him and control my life, it was none of their business what went on in our household. Threats were made against my friends, family, and any man I ever got involved with (after the marraige was over). Everything I did was to try to ruin his life, or make him look bad. Even after I left him, he would show up at my house or my job or my friends houses, spy on me, read my mail/email, check the caller ID on my phone. I had to account for every minute of my time - if I didn't show up at home until 5 minutes later than usual after work, I must have been out fooling around (this is 2 years after I left the jerk!). He would threaten to kill or hurt himself, and say it was my fault, that everyone would blame me. He spread rumors about me among the moms at my kids school and among our mutual friends - that he was the caring, devoted father and husband, and I was a whore running around with men while he took care of our kids. He used scripture from the Bible to try to show me what an awful person I was and that I was going to hell.
Threats of physical violence and sexual assault were constant, and much more common than actual violence. I was constantly told that he was going to kill me, run away with my kids. And when that happened, no one would bother to show up to my funeral because no one gave a damn what happened to me. Usually physical/sexual violence was used if the emotional abuse/terrorizing/manipulation didn't work. After raping me he would tell me what a dead f**k I was was, how much all his other girls enjoyed having sex with him, etc. He delighted in telling me how inadequate I was sexually, how awful my body was (I am 5'7" and weighed 110lbs or less at that time). But as awful as I was physically, that was all any man would ever want of me.
Jeez, I haven't thought about a lot of this stuff in quite awhile. It helps to remember sometimes, so I can see how far I've come since then, and remember why it has been so tough."
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Dreaming of you...
I dreamt of my abuser last night. In my dream, he didn't hurt me, didn't touch me, didn't even come near me. I only caught a glimpse of him, and that was enough to put me in a state of fear and total loss of confidence. I woke up feeling those same feelings, in a way only he can make me feel, and they have stayed with me so far this morning. I haven't seen the man in 2 1/2 years. He is locked up in prison, and I know in my head that I am safe. I have a totally different life now. And yet, a simple dream, and I am right back in the thick of it. The saddest part for me is that all those feelings are thrust onto my fiance, and he ends up feeling like he is the bad guy, when really, its that ghost in my head that is to blame.
If I can't even stand up to him in my dreams, in my thoughts, what will happen if and when I have to face him one day? Will I be able to be strong, and show him that he can't push me around any more? Or will that scared, timid little girl that I carry around inside of me show her face, and let him know that he still has power over me?
It is easy to put on a happy face to the world, that I am confident and unafraid, that I have taken my power back, and he does not have control over me anymore. Its a lot harder to prove that to myself.
If I can't even stand up to him in my dreams, in my thoughts, what will happen if and when I have to face him one day? Will I be able to be strong, and show him that he can't push me around any more? Or will that scared, timid little girl that I carry around inside of me show her face, and let him know that he still has power over me?
It is easy to put on a happy face to the world, that I am confident and unafraid, that I have taken my power back, and he does not have control over me anymore. Its a lot harder to prove that to myself.
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