In the past few years, I think as the actual events get more distant, I've gotten really weird about the emotionally abusive relationship I was in when I was a teenager.
When I tell people about it, I think because emotional abuse is difficult to explain, I kind of blame myself a little. And that's starting to creep me out. I say things like "Well, he cut me off from my friends and told me how to dress and got angry when I went to the movies with my parents, but it was partially my own fault for not standing up to him."
You know what? I tried to stand up to him, so fuck that. But it is really difficult to explain how completely I was manipulated by guilt and fear. He never hit me. He just said things, like "If you really loved me..." and "Well, I did this for you, so why can't you do the same for me?" It doesn't sound like anything too terrible, but he could send me into a panic. I always had to prove myself. I always had to apologize and beg (literally beg) for forgiveness for every slight. Awful things like...commenting that an actor in a movie was attractive.
That was abuse. And it wasn't my fault. It wasn't because I was weak or inadequate. It wasn't my fault.
Please refer me back to this post the next time I'm in a conversation where I dismiss this as "not a big deal" or "partially my own fault."
Moved.
1 year ago
Hey, Tails here:)
ReplyDeleteThis reminds me so painfully of the abusive bullshit that's happened to me. Like when I thought it was ok that my lover considered my body *icky*. Or when I got sexually harassed and was driven into silence by *guilt*, thinking I hadn't done enough to prevent it.
I must say sexual harassment was a learning experience while being hideously painful. It made me have the also-painful realization that I'd had a certain amount of disdain for women who were harassed/raped who didn't actively resist - which is incredibly messed up, especially given the fact that I'd thought myself a *feminist*. I couldn't really understand why it's so difficult to keep from self-blaming until it happened to me. No one wants to feel like a victim, and sometimes it means victims end up wanting to excuse what other bad people did to them.