Possibly triggering.

 

 

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Possibly triggering.

via 49 percent. by Samia on 10/2/09

We see that shit go down on Random Crime Show, and those people are nothing like us, and that situation is nothing like ours. This is what 'abuse' is; these are the people who get abused. Any high-fallutin' moral messages are lost in a haze of hypersexualized, glamourous imagery.

On TV, we wear our best lingerie to the crime scene.

They won't show:

• How it feels to put months, even years of work into a relationship that seems "normal" at first, with a well-liked, sociable person who appears to have everything going for them.
  

• That the physical situations usually start verbally-- or with non-verbal cues that send direct messages about the worth of your time, intellect, emotions, and physical body. Imperceptibly but steadily, you give up more and more of your spirit until the other person starts seeing you as some kind of child. Restraining you physically becomes perfectly consistent with the abuser's attitude towards you. It is established that you don't know what's best for yourself.

• Those little jabs at your self-esteem. Oh, but they're obviously just joking about your appearance/intelligence/interests/family/friends. You tell yourself "This shouldn't sting like it is..." and wonder if you're just being too sensitive. You try to shrug it off, especially when it happens in public...but some of us notice it usually happens in public. Hmm. Well, I don't want to start a scene. Oh, that table's already looking in our direction...
  

• All that doubt. Wondering if you're crazy for noticing another side to your partner, a side no one else can see.
  

• How hard it is to trust the part of you that cares whether you live or die, to trust your gut when you've been taught that any objection to ANYTHING a man ever does automatically constitutes overreaction. When your whole life has been a lesson on how women complain too much and possess overly emotional constitutions. That your tears are a manipulative tool, so STOP crying. What it's like to be taught your whole life that your brain is lacking some mysterious logic cortex.
  

• The unbearable charade. Being yelled at or struck for some ridiculous "reason," leaving to collect yourself, and coming home to a completely different person. Parallel universe much? The tantrums seem so few and far between that it's easy to pretend they aren't happening, especially if we come from a "pretending" kind of family.

• Hearing someone you love say things about your family that should never be said. If you come from a different culture than your partner, this can make you feel doubly caught and isolated. You feel you may have to distance yourself from your own values to stay an acceptable mate, ashamed to be walking this tightrope in the first place. Do you hate yourself? Do you hate where you come from? Who are you really? Are you always going to have to give up parts of yourself to fit in? Is it always like this?
  

• Slowly noticing that your partner is trying to be OMGZ BESTIES with everyone in your life. If you have a fight, they drag your people into it. There is no understanding that each of us are going to have a "side," a group of friends that are ultimately ours to keep, no matter where the relationship goes. They go crazy when you won't give up friends they don't like, but demand you absolutely adore everyone in their life Or Else. Sometimes this person is so manipulative that your own friends are the last to believe anything is wrong with the relationship.

• All the feeling stupid. Because this makes no sense. You are too smart/educated/rich/well-connected/employed/outspoken/clever/sociable/whatever for this. This is not supposed to happen to people like you. Uh-huh.
  

• That by the time it gets to the kind of violence we see glorified on TV...a person gets to feeling pretty isolated. The abuser's sick brand of love has changed you. You don't like yourself very much anymore. And no one ever wants to listen to all the details, so you stop talking because you can see it's making people around you feel bad. Maybe you feel silly because you were so excited at first, and now this has become completely shitty. It would be really embarrassing to tell your friends that...

• That even if you want out, this person could find a way to kill you or otherwise make your life pretty unbearable. That it's not as easy as taking the hand of some conventionally attractive cop in a C-cup and walking into the sunset.
  

• Lastly, your TV won't show you all the ways that our greater media has taught us what abuse is and isn't, which people deserve to get hurt, which don't, and when we should care.

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month.

 

 

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