Why is this bothering me?
Submitted by Awen on Tue, 12/07/2010 - 5:34pmI feel like I got kicked in the stomach. I was really dissociated when I got the email. My friend told me that my exhusband the abusive woman hater friended her on facebook. She didn't know what to do so she said yes.
This is a lot of why I am not on facebook, I don't want ties to anyone from the past.
I feel like vomiting. Why? I feel invaded. He's in my community. He was friends with my friend way before I was - they went to college together and sort of dated then - but when he left me, she left him. I have never met her but we email most every day now for over 3 years. Suddenly I am feeling mistrustful of her, I want to never email her again because she is connected to Him.
Plus he hates facebook, what is he doing there?
I feel like crying and I feel very very small. Why does this even matter to me? So what? I guess knowing that he still exists is upsetting. He is responsible for m,y breakdown and hospitalizations. I hate him. He made me hate myself, I had such Stockholm Syndrome, I was so brainwashed into hating myself because he told me to.
This reaction is freaking me out though because I didn't realize HOW much of an abuser he is, I am more dissociated with this than with the guy who raped me.... My Mom and therapists all know what an abuser he is, but somehow I stay trapped in this sick sympathy for him,,,,
I feel scared and vulnerable.
Heather I think it TOTALLY
Heather I think it TOTALLY makes sense that you are having this reaction to finding out your abusive ex friended your friend, and that your friend accepted. (I don't do facebook either. I hated it! I felt like everybody was competing to see who could be the shallowest, most superficial body-snatcher. I never felt safe posting anything. But that's different from what you were saying . . .)
I've had that Stockholm Syndrome thing too, with my father and also with an ex who behaved exactly like my father. I think it's a brutal thing - realizing that one has protected and/or defended their abuser the way I did - but totally makes sense as a coping mechanism for someone who is abused.
I am thinking of you and wishing you strength in getting through this trigger. I think you do such a good job with noticing and being present with the things you struggle with. Hugs, Mary
Thank you, you really
Thank you, you really helped! I DID notice this as it happened. And I am feeling better.
"It's the end," said the caterpillar. "It's the beginning," said the butterfly.
Its bothersome because you
Its bothersome because you appear linked, electronically that is, youre linked to her thru email, and she to him thru face book. Any type of connection is enough to make you sick. You may have to ask your friend to unfriend him. Im sorry you have to experience this.
I remember feeling really
I remember feeling really shitty when a friend passed through town and told me that she ran into the guy who I dated who raped me (she didn't know) she went on and said hes married and is having a kid. I felt like from 2000 miles away and without a word exchanged he still had some control over me.
Have you heard of restorative justice? Its a social justice model that explores the needs of victims and offenders to make each part heal. I think its whats missing from this picture, that he never saw how much I hurt for how long. And I never got to express my anger anywhere, certainly not to him. And I don't really give a shit what his needs are but I guess it addresses that too. Maybe he needs to hear me yell at him. :)
I'm sorry Heather. Take care.
Wow, yeah is how I feel,
Wow, yeah is how I feel, what you said about being 2000 miles away. I thinkt his exhusband thing is harder than I expect because I never really processed it as abuse, I was so trapped there, and had to internalize his hatred of women to survive. I think if I tap into that and his views being wrong, I am scared of the anger that might come up.
The problem I have with restorative justice is that I have never met an offender who would even say that hurt anyone. To them, their abusive behavoir is warrented and they are the victims. I have never met anyone with remorse. I have beent old by two people doing court mandated classes for men who beat women that it takes about 23 classes before the men will even say that maybe it is not the woman's fault. It takes about 52 classes to get them to even consider changing their actions. This is their mental illness - and I don't think of it as fun Icarus madness wheee shit, but as really sickness. They think they are victims. And it is not job to save them from that. It takes a lot of work to get these abusers to admit their even are hurting anyone, they are crazy and sick. They cannot see reality. This is why I find it weird that all the abusers then go into a 12 step program and never make ammends to me. There is no repsonsiblity at all. So they can fuck themselves, I say kill them.
I heard when I wason facebook from the brothe rof the guy who raped me. He's a national NA speaker now and drug consellor for people on parole. He was in prison when I was 13 and he was 19, he was always very sweet to me, when he got out he tried to make me go to high school and was very upset I was having sex and shooting dope. Of course then he bacame a drug dealer again, but whatever. Anyway the guy who raped me - his son was molested. He now calls his son "faggot". I told my therapist that he said he felt like throwing up. I say kill this asshole. I really don't believe in the power of changing for most people. In every traditional society if someone did something as awful as rape, they'd be put on a boat with no oars or sails.
I just read that there are some Muslim rules like you can rape a baby if you can pay for the doctor bills afterwards. I think I am going to vomit. Muhammud's wife was 6, but he waited til she was 9 to have sex with her. I just read this novel about punk Muslims and how they struggle with this stuff. The way UK punks wore swaztikas to piss off their parents, they were Star of David. Very wild. It taught me a lot about all the different kinds of Islam.
I honestly don't think rapists and wife beaters and child abusers and animal abusers can be rehabilitied. Yeah maybe they had a terrible childhood and stuff, but does that excuse them? No. And I know when i say just kill them then that gets into "who decides who shoudl be killed?" and all that. But maybe what would be best is if the victim and the victim's supporters got to decide what to do with the offenders. Fuck the offenders at this point. I care about US. And I don't care if they need to make ammends with me at this point, what I care about is me, or what I WANT to care about is me, I have always put my abusers' feelings and needs way before my own. I so much more on their side than my own. My exhusband used to scream at me that he hated that I wouldn't fight back, but I just saw his side and asked "what do you want me to do?" and cried. He would freak on me about not fighting back. It's like the boyfriend who beat me up for not being enough of a feminist.
Just kill them and be nice to the victims. The prepetrators had their chance as far as I am concerned. Now I want us to have ours.
However in theory I agree with restorative justice, I was raised in all that everyone is good and judge the actions not the person and went to Quaker college and know all the "there's no us vrs them" theories and also how we're all in it together and we all have to heal collectively or we won't heal at all, but since most offenders don't want to heal, then fuck them, kill them instead, I don't want to share my world with them anymore. In the real world that thinking got me abused.
I can see a war and see how both sides are the victims, I can do history and see how oppression and shame (like Germany after WW1) creates things like Hitler and WW2. I see in everyday life how victims become abusers. I know we all have to heal. But I think it is too idealistic, my ideals made me suffer. If someone cannot be accountable, then get rid of them. Of course I can say I wasn't accountable either - but then people tell me I was 14 and raised poorly, it's not my fault - but I can easily say that my abusers were all raised poorly too. See, I am way more on their sides. I hate that. I don't know how to love myself and be me, someone who was raised to see the suffering in everyone else first.
In the sexual trauma hospital I was in when I was 22, they had group with sexual offenders. They had to sit on the other side of the room from us and hear our stories. I doubt it did them any good. It was supposed to show them that abuse creates suffering later in the person, to make them face to face with people suffering from the type of stuff they had done to offers. I certainly don't think it was good for us. I imagine the guys would jerk off to our stories honestly. The recovery rate for sex offenders, esp pedophiles is almost nil. No abuser thinks he is an abuser, that's the nightmare.
My exhusband said that my story of rape wasn't rape and I was ruining it for women who had really been raped.
Now I want to throw up.
"It's the end," said the caterpillar. "It's the beginning," said the butterfly.
Yeah I think I have trouble
Yeah I think I have trouble with the "meeting the needs of offenders" aspect too. I can't wrap my mind around it and dont try because it makes me want to throw up too. And, its not my responsibility to rehabilitate or empathize with abusers. Like you said, we've done this enough, and while it was a survival mechanism at the time it also got us further abused. But the fact that he is blissfully unware of the true consequences of his actions ....
I have to go but I will come back to this
In theory though I dig this
In theory though I dig this idea of victims and perps sitting together in a safe space and having the perp really express their regret. but i just think they'd whine about their awful childhoods. i mean the guy who raped me and then made me his girlfriend, he was always crying drunk about his childhood. so i felt sorry for him. my frend;s dad is a vietnam vet and when she was growing up, before she and her mom and sister hid in a shelter when she turned 12, she would have her dad try to kill himself and she'd be a child trying to save his life, then he'd hold her hostage at gunpoint and the SWAT team would end up coming, but his brother was mayor so nothing ever happened to him. he scalded them with water, broke their bones, dragged them out windows that were closed, and the thing is, we all know it is from vietnam, so we all couldn't really get that angry. but my friend can become super violent crazy at the drop of a hat. she never got express her anger. she was feeling bad for her dad. so she gets drunk and beats up her boyfriends and smashes stuff. so is she an abuser now? and was it her dad's abuse that did it or that she never got express any anger about it because she felt sorry for him?
i am seeing so much crappy stuff, i guess i needed this exhusband in my face thing, i dunno. i emailed my friend that i may drop out of her world because i am just too triggered that she's in contact with an abuser of mine. i don't have any right to say who she can and cannot be friends with, but i told her i am triggered and feel scared and it's just overwhelming and i feel like it's tainted now with him. i guess she can decide what to do with that. i know it doesn't make logical sense, she is my friend and he's just some FB friend, but i don't feel safe now and i want to honor that. i used to not honor the feelings of fear. i want to honor me finally.
sarsha, please don't think i am against this idea you suggested, i actually wish it was that world. i am just dealing with the effects of seeing how really messed up i am with these people living in me, their reality in me, and mine denied.
i sat outside in the cold looking at the river, the swans. crows being noisy. and i closed my eyes and i told my ex the truth and it felt good, i spoke outloud, it cleaned out my belly, it is interesting, i want to do it more. i was just like "you said it was my fault you hit the walls and screamed at me, but it's your issue, not mine" stuff like that.
oh yesterday i was standing there looking down to the river and shaking a rattle in blessings, and the swans took off when i started and did three full clockwise circles . three is a great number, clockwise is sunwise, so very good, and swans are part of my tradition. i am taking that as a friendly thing.
sorry to be so intense right now about killing abusers.
"It's the end," said the caterpillar. "It's the beginning," said the butterfly.
Trigger Warning
Oh no worries, be against whatever you want. Or not against. I haven't necessarily made up my mind about restorative justice because although I like it in theory I don't quite see how it works in reality. I need to learn more. I do think they struck on a truth by talking about the meeting of needs as a part of the healing and moving on from a past crime (but how??). And I think that maybe if I had had some oppurtunity to express and confront and acknowledge and greive (at the time) and get support...then maybe I wouldn't be sitting here writing about something that happened eleven years ago. Instead, that process has been happening in stop frames. peice by cracked and broken peice. Acknowledgement first struck me when I attended Take Back the Night for the first time, 6 years after the fact. Which is odd, because its still unclear to me as to whether he was actively trying to kill me or was just being brutal for kicks. Greif was molasses through my veins for a year, numb withdrawel, then a flood of feelings too big to contain. I ran 5 miles a day, crying for 3 of them. Support came through one friend whom I shared with, and through you all. It makes me feel like I can be with where I am when I hear you all express your conflicts, by hearing your anger and about killing abusers, I can feel a little more okay with my own feelings. I used to fantasize that I had beat the shit out of him at the time rather than go limp and passive and ineffectual each time.
Well then. I seem to have sprouted a leak.
Oh shoot I should have done
Oh shoot I should have done trigger alerts too! Sorry! If anyone got triggered, I am so SORRY!!!!!! Ack.
I used to think I should forgive people because I could understand why they did the things they did - their childhoods etc - but now I think I am changing it to that I understand people. I'll forgive them when they ask for it and can tell me what they know they did wrong. Does that make sense? Til then, no forgiving. I am not going to forgive til ammends are made. I feel like forgiving and stuff, it puts the cart before the horse. I understand why people have harmed me but that doesn't mean I forgive them. They have to EARN that.
Restoritive justice to me would work when perps want to do it, when they see the damage they've done. And it has to be on OUR terms if they do it. They have to get themselves straight and then come back and work for my forgiveness and respect. Work hard. Sometimes, as much as I hate fundamental religions, I am relieved with men find God in some form or another and are scared into being better people. A lot of the 12 steppers are like that, they don't really understand why they hurt people, but they are shamed and scared and so they try not to anymore. That's one reason I like the 12 step program, it has the potetnial to self regulate abusers, and use intense peer pressure to keep people in line. But when it comes to having a talk about anything not in the big blue book, they usually are totally out of their element, it's weird. My friends when they would date 12 steppers, I was excited thinking these guys would be so honest about their crap and so respectful and so communicative, but they still cheated on them and stole their rent, Sigh.
I send books all the time to Pagans in prison, and I am not sure why. I guess I feel that they are the most abanonded people in the world, and most of them had horrible lives, and are in their for drug related stuff and unfair capitalist cultural abuse, and so they as humen beings deserve to have a chance to read stuff that might make them feel more connected to love and peace and hope, in that hellhole of prison which helps no one. But then I think about the actual people, would I hate them? How many kids do they have that are hungry? How many people have they scammed and abused and broken the hearts of? I guess because I don't have to see them, I am ok with doing this. I know I couldn't do prison ministry because I am a sucker big time and would probably end up marrying someone or unwitting being a drug mule or dedicating my life to some con artist's retrial. So I send books.
My grandmother once told me that my father is a conman.
In the ACT book "Finding Life After Trauma" they talk about some stuff that I really struggled with - how everybody tells us not to feel "negative emotions" - they even slam the NuAge movement for this, which made me happy. They talk about how the trauma and feelings about trauma cannot be taken away but we can learn to live with this reality and change life from where we are, not trying to change our feelings. It made me happy. I thought I'd share that for anyone who feels guilty like me when she feels angry or whine-y. I am getting a lot out of the book, some of it is challenging, but I dig it.
8 Keys has some interesting things too - 4% of the US population has anxiety attacks when they do relaxation exercises due to the vulnerable feeling. And a lot of trauma survivors have flashbacks when they do aerobic exercise - The increased heart beat actually can trigger panic. I don't say this to scare anyone, but if you have trouble with some of the typical recovery stuff, remember that we're all different. Some people, she writes, do better with weight training because it makes them feel stronger for handling the emotions. I totally get the crying when jogging - When I would go to the gym for the 2 years after I left my ex, I would sob on the bike, just crying. I didn't care what anyone said. Emotions are physical things - they are now finding that all our peptides have an emotion, and since most of them hang our in the stomach and intestines, we actually do have an emotional center there, so when you feel something in your gut, you're right! And when we are anxious and angry if we move, it tends to break up the emotional power. Oh yeah, and since most PTSD is due to taking the freeze option (or having no other choice) when in trauma, exercise can reroute that pattern, so when you feel triggered, remembering to move can snap your chemistry into some new patterns eventually.
I have noticed a lot more awareness of all my chronic pain now that I do mindfulness. My therapist says it is the drawbck to mindfulness therapies, you don't avoid pain, you relearn the relationship with it.
I just want to say thank you because the stuff I wrote yesterday about my family and my ex really seemed to clean me out somehow, something shifted. THANK YOU for giving me a place to have that happen.
"It's the end," said the caterpillar. "It's the beginning," said the butterfly.
Thanks so much for this
Thanks so much for this thread Heather and Sarsha! It feels emotionally nourishing right now for me to be reading all of this. I've been achieving some positive results lately from getting a lot of exercise (walking 3-4 miles a day most days, plus I just starting doing stretching exercises too) but I TOTALLY get the thing where it can make triggers more intense, as can relaxation exercises.
Also, I hadn't known about restorative justice - I found what you all said about it to be really interesting, and I agree that it's next to impossible for abusers to ever realize that they are abusers rather than the victims (of course they may have been victims at some point too - the problem is they think they are always the victim!), and there's really no way to make them get to that point.
Yeah, "forgiveness" is something I don't even think about any more. Like, I'm not even sure what people mean by that, even and especially when it's used in a religious context.