Ashamed...?
(Writing this post on June 12, in hindsight)
In a previous post, I mentioned that I have differentiated between my reasons for leaving, now, and my process of thinking through hurts in the past. As mentioned a few times, I am going no contact because my parents are continuing to seek to abuse myself and abuse or corrupt my children. I cannot allow this to happen. They were also somewhat abusive to myself as a child. But these are two different things.
I realized that before I made this distinction, I tended to try to cram everything through the filter of evil. As though my parents were pure evil all of the time, which was not quite true.
On this day in my diary, I noted that I felt significantly embarrassed and even ashamed of my previous blog. I was assuring myself that I had permission to express myself imperfectly. However, I still felt quite ashamed of how I had presented things. It had not been correct.
These feelings of shame have dissipated by the time that I write this (June 12), but it seems significant to go back and think through those feelings. Why did I feel them?
I am writing at this time for an extremely small audience: about six people that I know, and maybe 5-10 unknown people online are following this blog. It is perfect: just enough of an audience that I don't feel like I am speaking only to myself. But not so much that I have trolls and hurtful people trying to change my mind.
My readers are compassionate, and understand my struggles. They have shown me grace in the past. Why, then, did I feel so ashamed?
As I pondered this, I thought how my experience is one of a victim. In this way, I am sharing much in contact with those much misunderstood victims of domestic abuse, such as wives and husbands who are physically, sexually, or verbally abused by their spouses. I realized that when I hit this moment of shame, I was tying into a very common experience for such people: and I wanted to dig deeper.
Why did I feel so ashamed? Before whom did I feel ashamed? I had only been writing to myself and a small group of people that would probably be able to sort through the mess and understand me anyways. Why did I feel ashamed?
I think the answer is that I felt the need to express myself perfectly. This came out in one of my first therapy sessions. I was so painstaking in my details, I came with so many lists and so much material. I was trying so hard to get my side of the story all figured out. Before I could go no contact, or say something to my parents, or do anything, I felt like I needed to have my story completely, 100% figured out. "Why?" my therapist had asked me. "It's OK if it's not perfect," my wife had assured me.
But I felt a very great compulsion to avoid any mistake possible. Why?
Why couldn't I make mistakes? Why did it have to be perfect?
As I thought about this question, and the question, "before whom are you ashamed," I thought how incredibly interconnected we are as people. "No man is an island," is a true saying. We cannot function as true sovereign individuals. We need friends. We need community. We all function as parts of a greater society. Usually, we feel the push and pull of various people who agree and disagree mildly with us. We feel rooted and grounded, like a tree with roots in many directions -- around rocks, through streams, into rich and sandy soil -- giving life to all our branches.
The tree is perhaps not the perfect metaphor. We are more like a lichen, or a fungus where our life intermingles with the life and minds of those around us. We may notice this especially in conversation with a close friend. We may both begin discussing things that we have a vague idea about: as we talk, we affirm one another and finish one another's sentences. By the end of the conversation, we really know what we believe. Some matters (most matters, really) are too complex to figure out on our own. We need many minds working together. We can see this at work as well in social media, but it has always been this way. And this is what society is. Most of us have some vague idea of what a democracy is, and we are in favour. Somewhere, someone has a much clearer idea of what democracy is, and they are taking care of that. Great. Good on them. We have a vague idea of what Christian orthodoxy is as well. And somewhere, someone is writing a book about trinitarianism. Good job. And we have a vague idea about what family is: and we give mental assent to it, without giving it too much thought. Someone somewhere in the web is giving this more thought and attention than we are right now. Until we suddenly feel (or are told) that we have it completely wrong. Have you every been told that you are against democracy? Are a racist? Are a Nazi? Are a heretic?
The feeling that one gets is that one thought that they were walking along in concert with the collective mind, with the wisdom of the ages (oh sure, one may disagree with one's coworkers...but one agrees with all of the really smart people that one knows through church, or through one's group online), when suddenly they find themselves on the outside. It is a very troubling thing to find one's self on the outside. Very troubling indeed. Troubling enough, in fact, to cast into doubt everything that one thought they knew about one's self, their identity, and their beliefs.
We don't actually know nearly as much as we think we do. We think that we have answers to all of life's questions. But in reality, if we were to go into our minds, on many of the important questions there would not be a dictionary full of information, there would be a yellow sticky-note that says, "As so-and-so," or "refer to my pastor for the answers to this," or "for all political questions, refer to the conservative/republican party" or "whatever the xyz denomination believes on this, I do as well." When we find ourselves on the outside, then we need to actually dig into "well, what do I believe on this?" That is very hard work. People will call us obsessive, distressed, and unbalanced. But really, we are just trying to think for ourselves. People don't do that very often, and so it looks odd to people. And don't worry: once the work is done, we will get the matters settled in our minds, and replace the troubling areas with new sticky notes, and go on with a new sort of normal. This transition time is not permanent.
But the transition is troubling. And it does feel embarrassing, especially when one makes a mistake.
Why?
Because one feels in a case of abuse that there are two radically different versions of events. Most abusers put on a face in public: they even enforce this with the family. Behind closed doors, everyone knows, "you are never, ever to speak about this to others." It was a family rule in our home (though I don't think it was ever stated, we all knew). It is a rule in many abusive homes: it is probably the first and most fundamental rule.
And the result of it is that outsiders think that these families are good families. Some of the best, perhaps. Often, people have no idea why children later rebel. "Oh well, perhaps she got into the wrong kind of friends in high school." "I guess he just rebelled and decided to run away." "Things were going so well, then he suddenly just decided to drink it all away..." If things were going so well, one wonders why the children have such hidden pain, that comes back to sabotage them?
But the outside world continues to reflect back the perfect image that is carefully presented to them by the abusers. "We are perfect. We are good. We are sacrificial. We are wise. We are good Christians. We are good parents. We are everything that we could possibly be and more..."
...and so when a victim comes stumbling out of the horrendous abuse that is happening behind closed doors, they find so little support. They find a circle of friends that has all been convinced ("groomed") that their abusers are perfect. And so before they can find any support, they must convince others of their side of the events.
Except that it is really really hard to convince people of their side of the events. A victim is very confused. That is almost the definition of being a victim. An abuser takes a relationship of love, and turns it around into a tool of control. That is hurtful. That is confusing. And there were good times mixed with the bad. There are also tools such as love-bombing, hoovering, and gaslighting which are specifically meant to confuse the victim.
The victim is in no state to have an objective ability to tell their side of the story.
"That's OK," it does not need to be perfect.
...except that it does.
Let's look at what this looks like in real life.
An abuser tells his wife that he is working late. But really, he goes out with friends. He smells of alcohol, and so she knows where he has been. This is intentional.
She asks him about it, "I thought you were working late? Why do you smell of alcohol?"
He becomes defensive. Accuses her of micromanaging him, being suspicious, and the like.
"But you said..."
"No I didn't. You're making that up. You're crazy..." This is a tactic called gaslighting.
She begins to question herself. She begins to question her sanity. She begins to question her worth as a human being. As other forms of abuse ramp up, she questions whether she deserves it all. As he has momentary bouts of good behaviour, she is so excited to have a reprieve in the storm, she feels a surge of warm feelings towards him. Is this love? He tells her that his abuse is training: he wants her to know how to defend herself. Or he tells her he is punishing her: he tells her that he did not hit her as hard as she deserves, and she feels gratitude.
When she finally stumbles out of this mind game, she is a mess. A mental, emotional mess. She is in absolutely no condition to relate in a mature, sober, objective way to her friends.
Her friends whom she desperately needs. Why? Because it is impossible to think alone. She has been thinking, up till now, along with her abuser. But that has not been working. She is dying inside. And so she is pulling away from him. She is disconnecting from his server. Half of her brain is literally dangling in midair: wires popping and fizzling, coolant and fluid leaking from everywhere. She is a mess. She needs someone else to plug into, someone to complete her circuitry. Some way to rewire herself into a new community. Some way to think a new normal into existence.
"That's OK," says her girlfriend, "it doesn't need to be perfect."
...except that it does...
"It's just that this one time he said he was going to the office, and he really went out with friends." She begins tentatively, "Then he called me crazy for asking him about it..."
Her friend's brows furrow. Catastrophe.
She tries to continue. "Sometimes, he is so mean to me. I don't know why..."
Her friend frowns.
The victim tries a few more times, and each time, sounds crazier and crazier to herself, and her friend.
Then her friend begins to speak: "Oh, honey. No husband is perfect all the time. But Billy-Bob is a great pastor. You should be grateful to be married to such a man of God..."
As she speaks, it feels like a jagged anvil is being slowly ground into the top right side of her brain. She sinks lower in her chair, as she tries to pull off a big happy church grin. She stumbles out, her mind in tatters. No idea. No fucking idea what is true.
***
"Why are you writing this blog? Why the compulsion to get everything perfect? To understand it completely?"
...because the reality is, victims carry all the weight. The abuser does not need to spend eight months trying to understand their side of the story. They know their dysfunctional side: and they will speak and enforce and whisper it from every corner. It is the victim that has no idea which side is up.
And the reality is, people will want to know why victims leave abusers. They will gently interrogate them. And victims will need to have answers. As much as the world will say, "It's OK. It doesn't need to be perfect..." the reality is it needs to make sense. It needs to fit in some way with what is normal and accepted.
Otherwise, everyone one meets on the street will shout "unclean" and "thou must return to him, oh thou vagabond wanderer!" You think this is too extreme? It is not.
If...
...a wife is no longer with her husband
...a child is no longer in contact with his parents
...a church member is no longer attending their long-time church
...two friends or business partners or musicians are no longer in contact
...people will notice. People will want to know why. People will ask questions.
And if it is a situation of abuse, the victim will tend to feel pressure to explain themselves well.
People that are not in this situation will not get it.
But the struggle is real.
A victim often has only one shot at a person: one shot to make the person believe that they are the sane one, and their abuser is the crazy one. One shot. They may never have another.
But it is not just about picking sides, about winning the gossip wars. No one likes feeling like their friends are being turned against them: but it is not primarily about that.
The minds of others are inside of the victim. They need people to believe them so that they can believe themselves. That is why they need to create a convincing narrative. That is why they need to be believed.
If their closest friends do not believe their version of events, then how can they themselves believe them? And if -- as is often the case -- living in the abusive version of events is like a constant nightmare, then being told (even in the kindest way possible) that they are crazy will be like pushing them back into hell. It is a sort of death. It is torture. It makes life not worth living. It makes death -- while dreaded -- a desirably alternative to living in such torment.
...and that is why I felt embarrassed. Before whom? Before myself.
I felt that all of this time, I had been expressing myself wrongly. To myself, and a few friends.
Why was this so catastrophic? Likely, my friends did not notice very much.
Because I nearly messed it all up. I nearly explained my abuse in a way that was not credible.
And that? That would have been catastrophe.
Then, I would run the risk of people labelling me as "crazy," or "unreasonable." Then, the entire journey may be resisted. Then, I may be pushed back into old patterns.
And so that is why I felt the need for perfection. That is why I "needed to know." And that is why I wrote this blog. As imperfect as it is.
I realized that before I made this distinction, I tended to try to cram everything through the filter of evil. As though my parents were pure evil all of the time, which was not quite true.
On this day in my diary, I noted that I felt significantly embarrassed and even ashamed of my previous blog. I was assuring myself that I had permission to express myself imperfectly. However, I still felt quite ashamed of how I had presented things. It had not been correct.
These feelings of shame have dissipated by the time that I write this (June 12), but it seems significant to go back and think through those feelings. Why did I feel them?
I am writing at this time for an extremely small audience: about six people that I know, and maybe 5-10 unknown people online are following this blog. It is perfect: just enough of an audience that I don't feel like I am speaking only to myself. But not so much that I have trolls and hurtful people trying to change my mind.
My readers are compassionate, and understand my struggles. They have shown me grace in the past. Why, then, did I feel so ashamed?
As I pondered this, I thought how my experience is one of a victim. In this way, I am sharing much in contact with those much misunderstood victims of domestic abuse, such as wives and husbands who are physically, sexually, or verbally abused by their spouses. I realized that when I hit this moment of shame, I was tying into a very common experience for such people: and I wanted to dig deeper.
Why did I feel so ashamed? Before whom did I feel ashamed? I had only been writing to myself and a small group of people that would probably be able to sort through the mess and understand me anyways. Why did I feel ashamed?
I think the answer is that I felt the need to express myself perfectly. This came out in one of my first therapy sessions. I was so painstaking in my details, I came with so many lists and so much material. I was trying so hard to get my side of the story all figured out. Before I could go no contact, or say something to my parents, or do anything, I felt like I needed to have my story completely, 100% figured out. "Why?" my therapist had asked me. "It's OK if it's not perfect," my wife had assured me.
But I felt a very great compulsion to avoid any mistake possible. Why?
Why couldn't I make mistakes? Why did it have to be perfect?
As I thought about this question, and the question, "before whom are you ashamed," I thought how incredibly interconnected we are as people. "No man is an island," is a true saying. We cannot function as true sovereign individuals. We need friends. We need community. We all function as parts of a greater society. Usually, we feel the push and pull of various people who agree and disagree mildly with us. We feel rooted and grounded, like a tree with roots in many directions -- around rocks, through streams, into rich and sandy soil -- giving life to all our branches.
The tree is perhaps not the perfect metaphor. We are more like a lichen, or a fungus where our life intermingles with the life and minds of those around us. We may notice this especially in conversation with a close friend. We may both begin discussing things that we have a vague idea about: as we talk, we affirm one another and finish one another's sentences. By the end of the conversation, we really know what we believe. Some matters (most matters, really) are too complex to figure out on our own. We need many minds working together. We can see this at work as well in social media, but it has always been this way. And this is what society is. Most of us have some vague idea of what a democracy is, and we are in favour. Somewhere, someone has a much clearer idea of what democracy is, and they are taking care of that. Great. Good on them. We have a vague idea of what Christian orthodoxy is as well. And somewhere, someone is writing a book about trinitarianism. Good job. And we have a vague idea about what family is: and we give mental assent to it, without giving it too much thought. Someone somewhere in the web is giving this more thought and attention than we are right now. Until we suddenly feel (or are told) that we have it completely wrong. Have you every been told that you are against democracy? Are a racist? Are a Nazi? Are a heretic?
The feeling that one gets is that one thought that they were walking along in concert with the collective mind, with the wisdom of the ages (oh sure, one may disagree with one's coworkers...but one agrees with all of the really smart people that one knows through church, or through one's group online), when suddenly they find themselves on the outside. It is a very troubling thing to find one's self on the outside. Very troubling indeed. Troubling enough, in fact, to cast into doubt everything that one thought they knew about one's self, their identity, and their beliefs.
We don't actually know nearly as much as we think we do. We think that we have answers to all of life's questions. But in reality, if we were to go into our minds, on many of the important questions there would not be a dictionary full of information, there would be a yellow sticky-note that says, "As so-and-so," or "refer to my pastor for the answers to this," or "for all political questions, refer to the conservative/republican party" or "whatever the xyz denomination believes on this, I do as well." When we find ourselves on the outside, then we need to actually dig into "well, what do I believe on this?" That is very hard work. People will call us obsessive, distressed, and unbalanced. But really, we are just trying to think for ourselves. People don't do that very often, and so it looks odd to people. And don't worry: once the work is done, we will get the matters settled in our minds, and replace the troubling areas with new sticky notes, and go on with a new sort of normal. This transition time is not permanent.
But the transition is troubling. And it does feel embarrassing, especially when one makes a mistake.
Why?
Because one feels in a case of abuse that there are two radically different versions of events. Most abusers put on a face in public: they even enforce this with the family. Behind closed doors, everyone knows, "you are never, ever to speak about this to others." It was a family rule in our home (though I don't think it was ever stated, we all knew). It is a rule in many abusive homes: it is probably the first and most fundamental rule.
And the result of it is that outsiders think that these families are good families. Some of the best, perhaps. Often, people have no idea why children later rebel. "Oh well, perhaps she got into the wrong kind of friends in high school." "I guess he just rebelled and decided to run away." "Things were going so well, then he suddenly just decided to drink it all away..." If things were going so well, one wonders why the children have such hidden pain, that comes back to sabotage them?
But the outside world continues to reflect back the perfect image that is carefully presented to them by the abusers. "We are perfect. We are good. We are sacrificial. We are wise. We are good Christians. We are good parents. We are everything that we could possibly be and more..."
...and so when a victim comes stumbling out of the horrendous abuse that is happening behind closed doors, they find so little support. They find a circle of friends that has all been convinced ("groomed") that their abusers are perfect. And so before they can find any support, they must convince others of their side of the events.
Except that it is really really hard to convince people of their side of the events. A victim is very confused. That is almost the definition of being a victim. An abuser takes a relationship of love, and turns it around into a tool of control. That is hurtful. That is confusing. And there were good times mixed with the bad. There are also tools such as love-bombing, hoovering, and gaslighting which are specifically meant to confuse the victim.
The victim is in no state to have an objective ability to tell their side of the story.
"That's OK," it does not need to be perfect.
...except that it does.
Let's look at what this looks like in real life.
An abuser tells his wife that he is working late. But really, he goes out with friends. He smells of alcohol, and so she knows where he has been. This is intentional.
She asks him about it, "I thought you were working late? Why do you smell of alcohol?"
He becomes defensive. Accuses her of micromanaging him, being suspicious, and the like.
"But you said..."
"No I didn't. You're making that up. You're crazy..." This is a tactic called gaslighting.
She begins to question herself. She begins to question her sanity. She begins to question her worth as a human being. As other forms of abuse ramp up, she questions whether she deserves it all. As he has momentary bouts of good behaviour, she is so excited to have a reprieve in the storm, she feels a surge of warm feelings towards him. Is this love? He tells her that his abuse is training: he wants her to know how to defend herself. Or he tells her he is punishing her: he tells her that he did not hit her as hard as she deserves, and she feels gratitude.
When she finally stumbles out of this mind game, she is a mess. A mental, emotional mess. She is in absolutely no condition to relate in a mature, sober, objective way to her friends.
Her friends whom she desperately needs. Why? Because it is impossible to think alone. She has been thinking, up till now, along with her abuser. But that has not been working. She is dying inside. And so she is pulling away from him. She is disconnecting from his server. Half of her brain is literally dangling in midair: wires popping and fizzling, coolant and fluid leaking from everywhere. She is a mess. She needs someone else to plug into, someone to complete her circuitry. Some way to rewire herself into a new community. Some way to think a new normal into existence.
"That's OK," says her girlfriend, "it doesn't need to be perfect."
...except that it does...
"It's just that this one time he said he was going to the office, and he really went out with friends." She begins tentatively, "Then he called me crazy for asking him about it..."
Her friend's brows furrow. Catastrophe.
She tries to continue. "Sometimes, he is so mean to me. I don't know why..."
Her friend frowns.
The victim tries a few more times, and each time, sounds crazier and crazier to herself, and her friend.
Then her friend begins to speak: "Oh, honey. No husband is perfect all the time. But Billy-Bob is a great pastor. You should be grateful to be married to such a man of God..."
As she speaks, it feels like a jagged anvil is being slowly ground into the top right side of her brain. She sinks lower in her chair, as she tries to pull off a big happy church grin. She stumbles out, her mind in tatters. No idea. No fucking idea what is true.
***
"Why are you writing this blog? Why the compulsion to get everything perfect? To understand it completely?"
...because the reality is, victims carry all the weight. The abuser does not need to spend eight months trying to understand their side of the story. They know their dysfunctional side: and they will speak and enforce and whisper it from every corner. It is the victim that has no idea which side is up.
And the reality is, people will want to know why victims leave abusers. They will gently interrogate them. And victims will need to have answers. As much as the world will say, "It's OK. It doesn't need to be perfect..." the reality is it needs to make sense. It needs to fit in some way with what is normal and accepted.
Otherwise, everyone one meets on the street will shout "unclean" and "thou must return to him, oh thou vagabond wanderer!" You think this is too extreme? It is not.
If...
...a wife is no longer with her husband
...a child is no longer in contact with his parents
...a church member is no longer attending their long-time church
...two friends or business partners or musicians are no longer in contact
...people will notice. People will want to know why. People will ask questions.
And if it is a situation of abuse, the victim will tend to feel pressure to explain themselves well.
People that are not in this situation will not get it.
But the struggle is real.
A victim often has only one shot at a person: one shot to make the person believe that they are the sane one, and their abuser is the crazy one. One shot. They may never have another.
But it is not just about picking sides, about winning the gossip wars. No one likes feeling like their friends are being turned against them: but it is not primarily about that.
The minds of others are inside of the victim. They need people to believe them so that they can believe themselves. That is why they need to create a convincing narrative. That is why they need to be believed.
If their closest friends do not believe their version of events, then how can they themselves believe them? And if -- as is often the case -- living in the abusive version of events is like a constant nightmare, then being told (even in the kindest way possible) that they are crazy will be like pushing them back into hell. It is a sort of death. It is torture. It makes life not worth living. It makes death -- while dreaded -- a desirably alternative to living in such torment.
...and that is why I felt embarrassed. Before whom? Before myself.
I felt that all of this time, I had been expressing myself wrongly. To myself, and a few friends.
Why was this so catastrophic? Likely, my friends did not notice very much.
Because I nearly messed it all up. I nearly explained my abuse in a way that was not credible.
And that? That would have been catastrophe.
Then, I would run the risk of people labelling me as "crazy," or "unreasonable." Then, the entire journey may be resisted. Then, I may be pushed back into old patterns.
And so that is why I felt the need for perfection. That is why I "needed to know." And that is why I wrote this blog. As imperfect as it is.
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