Don't Call Me a Victim

I've never really thought about writing about this because I've always thought of it as a private matter, something that concerned my family alone. Also, because I had done my years of therapy and moved on, the pain of that time fading into memory. New things define and consume me now and, as with any other type of heart break, what once seemed like the end of the world is now just a relic of my personal history. But mainly I think it's because when we hear “abused woman” it is applied as a label, one that may arouse genuine sympathy in others, but that tends to stick distastefully, like an old piece of gum under a bench. I don't talk about it much because I've never wanted to be defined by that one life experience. That experience is not me, it is something I journeyed through, and so I speak about it only when it seems pertinent for the listener to hear. Ultimately, this is why I now want to speak openly about it. I never want to be seen as someone who was a victim. I want to be recognized as I see myself: a warrior, a truth teller; the one who took the high road and ushered in a new peace for myself.

When I fell in love with him I knew in my gut that it was a bad idea, but, being young and unsure of myself I ignored my better judgment and plowed ahead, both because he fascinated me and he was crazy about me, and his love made me feel important. Living abroad at the time, I was away from my family and had no one in my vicinity to call me out on my clearly poor choice. He didn't need to isolate me; I was already isolated. I'm not going to say he selected me intentionally, that he had some evil scheme ready to inflict on me. Not to say that some abuse isn't premeditated, but I don't believe this was that case. I believed and I still believe that he was a damaged, suffering young man, who was acting out in his confusion about the abuse inflicted on him his entire childhood. Indeed much of my healing came from the same understanding that had compelled me to stay way him: in seeing the boy in him that was a scared and mistreated victim himself, I was able to eventually forgive him. He was repeating what he had been taught, reliving the trauma in his own mind everyday until it clouded his judgement and made him lash out.

I could tell you about the wild, histrionic fights that lasted from the evening into the early morning hours; I could tell you the viciously cruel and demeaning words he spoke to me, just moments after showering me with love; I could tell you how he would disappear for hours, then come back drunk and talking about death and violence, hungry to destroy the world and then himself. I could tell you about hiding knives and pointy objects, wires and ropes and anything else he could conceivably harm himself with; how the fear of him killing himself hung over my days like a specter threatening to destroy me. I can tell you how he howled like an animal, hitting his head against the wall in an effort to knock himself out; how I stepped in between him and other men who wanted to fight him for his belligerent remarks, fully prepared to take the hit instead. I can tell you how he treated me like an angel and a devil, but never, ever as a human being. I have many, many stories I could tell you.

His family dumped him on me. He grew up in abuse, and had reacted to it with anger. So when I came along, full of love and eager to help any suffering soul, they dumped him on me. Washed their hands clean. There were nights when I called his father or his siblings, begging them to help him and their responses were always tepid, resigned and utterly void of familial devotion. I felt so sorry for him. How could anyone be so cruel to their own child, their own blood? Knowing I was the only one willing to stand by him, I would wrap myself more tightly around him.

Many people think you have to be weak to end up in an abusive situation. The truth is, people in abusive situations don't leave because they know they are the stronger ones. They feel they can't turn away as a loved one suffers, and so they endure it. They are isolated, not only by the abuser, but by those closest to them: the ones who stop coming around, checking in or who refuse to see the truth of the situation.

He never hit me. But I knew he could have killed me. For a couple of years after leaving I would see someone who looked like him and be struck by a pang of horror. I would get flashes of him walking into where I was working holding a gun and pointing it at me. I was afraid of this, because I knew how often that type of thing happened. I had heard the stories on the news of the women who tried to leave and had paid the price. I was acutely aware of my vulnerability and luck as one of the ones who had got away.

Another common misconception is that abused women don't fight back. They DO fight back. They get angry, demand to be treated better, say nasty things in the heat of an argument; all of this is fodder for the abuser. He gets to say “see? You're so unstable. Control your anger. You're the reason this is happening.” And the one being abused, that sensitive and thoughtful soul, looks at herself and says “it's true, I keep getting angry. Maybe I am the unstable one. Maybe I am unlovable.” You get depressed and stop seeing things clearly. You get so wrapped up in their pain and their erratic behaviour, that you start to internalize it. It begins to make sense to you. What would be jibberish to anyone else, the wild rantings of an unstable person, begins to have a shape and a thread that you can follow. You can follow it and follow it forever, hoping it will lead you both out of the maze into the light of reason, but its ends are tied together and you inevitably end up back where you started.

There is also a misconception is that abusive people are awful all of the time. They're not. When he was okay, life was wonderful. We laughed a lot and did crazy things like see what would happen if we just ate cake for one whole day (note: it's physically impossible). When he was sad he would come and lie in my arms and I would sing to him or read him my poetry and it would make him feel better. And there was progress. He got his drinking under control. Certain things got better. But then, certain things did not. And you never knew when the situation would go from normal to the brink of insanity. He was a ticking time bomb and anything could set him off.

What finally broke the spell was that I started to talk. I would sneak out of bed in the middle of the night to call friends I trusted. They told me to look at it from their angle: what would I tell them if the roles were reversed? My behaviour was only enabling his behaviour, and wasn't helping him in the end. He needed help I could not give. This truth worked on me and allowed me to gradually loosen the grip of dysfunction that bound me to him. That part of me that made me stay – my ability to forgive, to empathize, to listen without judging or criticizing – these are my strengths. These are the things that ultimately helped me to find balance and recognize the kind of behaviours I have to walk away from.

As a woman I am sadly accustomed to the fact that I need to be rather fearful for my body on a regular basis. As soon as the slightest shades of dusk settle on the horizon my senses are heightened. If I have to walk anywhere alone, even in a resident

ial area, my ears become very keen to the slightest sound, my eyes to the slightest movement. I cross the road when I see a man, ANY man coming, and if I see a woman in the distance I rush to catch up, staying within about 20 feet, clinging to an imaginary hope that, if it came down to it, I would have her back and she would have mine. I change my gait as a declaration that I will kick your fucking teeth in if I have to. I will kick your fucking teeth in. This isn't a joke, it's a well thought out certainty, one that myself and all women need to feel prepared for if we are to make our way safely down a darkening road. In this sense I suppose all women are victims at some time or another, of the predatory nature of our social environment.

There needs to be more conversation about the circumstances that create an abuser; the likelihood that they are suffering the trauma of at one point being on the receiving end of abuse is essentially at %100. There also needs to be more conversation surrounding the intersection between abusive behaviour and mental illness. I am currently in an ordeal with one of my dearest friends who is very ill with BPD, and the similarities in her new behaviours and his are striking. While I am not a doctor, I can now say with near absolute certainty that he was suffering from the same thing, suffering being the operative word. The Hell he put me through came from within himself. As I reflect upon that truth, I feel a newfound sense of sympathy for him, in spite of all he put me through.

It might seem like an arbitrary point to worry about how we define people who are abused, after all, the facts about domestic violence remain the same. But it matters because we are not separate from the labels thrust upon us. We begin to see ourselves through the lens that others define us with. “Victim” does not communicate the strength and fortitude that was required to not only remove myself from, but transcend that situation; to heal my very soul; to trust that I could love again. It does not point to the rigourous inner-sifting I had to do through generations of family karma to fully understand and accept how I had arrived in such a situation.

I say don't call me a victim because I have never viewed myself as one. I knew that I had been mistreated, I knew that it was abusive and unhealthy, but I never labelled myself “victim”. This is not to take away from the importance of calling things what they are; but labels can anchor us into vague assumptions about complex issues. To call myself “mother” is a label that comes with preconceived ideas and expectations of who I am and what my life is like, and so does the label “victim”. "Victim" has no power in it, it is the antithesis of personal power. It makes me a part of a faceless mass who are not capable of protecting themselves or sway the tide of their own lives. It white washes my unique story with statistics and imbues my experiences with misconceptions. This is part of the reason so many women don't want to talk about it: they can't identify with a label they implies they are weak, when their story is in fact the testament of their personal might.

I can say I was abused. I can say that abuse in domestic situations is at epidemic proportions and must be addressed for the sake of the next generations. I can say that I understand men are also abused, while stating that men must own their responsibility in recognizing and addressing abusive situations, whether it is a man or a woman who is a being abused.

I did my part to stand up to abuse by leaving an abusive partner. So acknowledge my struggle. Hear my unique story. Call me powerful. Call me brave. But please, don't call me a victim.