Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones...
But Names Will Never Hurt Me.
I have been hit, intimidated, grabbed, pushed, shoved, strangled, bruised, thrown and squeezed.
Being verbally abused has taken a greater toll on me.
I am just learning, now that I am newly away from the situation, just how hard it is to see the effects of abuse on your life. As I said before, denial glues the entire mess together. You just keep trudging along, picking up the stray pieces of your life being ripped apart and steadily glue them back together with denial one by one.
The hardest part is that you are unable to see a clear view of what is "normal". You doubt yourself. You doubt your inner voice and what it's telling you about truth and love and God and light. You blame yourself.
My therapist asked me to start a "truth book". She wants me to write down the truth of abuse, the truth of my personal experiences, and the truth of my husband's abusive traits. I see things clearly for just brief patches of time. To survive in a world where the rug is pulled out from under you ever month or so you learn to cope by pretending "everything is fine!" and pushing the dark truth deeper and deeper down. It takes courage to pull it into the light and examine it under harsh reality. I say courage, because doing that means losing your family as you've known it. No matter how bad things were...it was all you knew and no matter how bad, it is still excruciatingly painful to lose the "dream" of your family.
One night recently, in the midst of prayer, I received revelation. I was begging God to help me to see the truth of my life, the truth of my relationship and the path I needed to follow once I knew the truth. I had the impression to look up "verbal abuse" online and came across a website that told my story like no other had. It IS my life! http://www.verbalabuse.com/ I want to share some of the examples from that site that are helping me....
"Name calling is verbal abuse. It is harmful for children who witness it. They either see their survival threatened or they think it's normal, or both.
Abusers almost universally act like nothing happened, like they feel fine and the relationship is fine. This is because they have more control. If you doubt yourself then you might go with what they tell you. This makes them happy.
"My husband's abuse is very quiet, insidious. He always finds a way to make me the problem. When he gets angry he is enraged. There does not seem to be any degree between not being angry and rage. I have reached a point of deep depression myself. Will things ever be right?"
The abuse you describe usually happens behind closed doors, so some people may not see the problem. I do. Most abusers present a "perfect image, admitting a mistake or two, which they swear wouldn't happend if only their wives wouldn't 'whatever..' "
Also, most women don't take to an abuser sexually once he shows his controlling side. Most who are abused are too traumatized to regain the level of trust necessary for physical intimacy. Please trust your intuition. No wonder you are depressed, you suffered from verbal abuse. Verbal abuse falls into many categories...
- Abusive Anger--He blows up at you
- Criticizing--Duragatory comments
- Name Calling
- Threatening--taunting you about leaving
- Blaming--He tells you his behavior is your fault
And these categories are just a few. Battered women have always told me that the verbal abuse was the worst. So having experienced "worse than battering", it will take some time to recover.
"It has taken me time to see that I was in an abusive relationship, and that my husband's abuse wasn't 'all my fault'. We separated, but we have three children, was separation a good idea?"
Separation is a positive step. You might feel lonely at first, but stay strong. Some men who've been abusive want to change to get their partner back. But is a rare one who actually changes, and it can take him a long time.
Verbal abuse so controls ones mind that some women who have left a verbally (sometimes physically) abusive relationship twenty or more years ago still find themselves wondering... "Maybe there's something I could have done..." or "Maybe if I'd tried to explain just one more time my relationship would have gotten better?"
The victim can't comprehend it.
To gain freedom you must recognize you are abused. Recognize there was nothing you could have said or done--no way to "be" to stop the abuse. The person indulges in abuse.
I have a hard time calling my husband an "abuser". He is so much more than that. He has so many wonderful qualities... I ultimately believe in the good in him and hope with all my heart he somehow sees the truth before it's too late and his life is strewn with the wreckage and debris of his anger. I also hate to call myself a "victim"... but if we are talking technical terms, it is what I am. I think I need to keep walking towards the truth if I ever want to heal.
