What is the hardest topic to talk about in society these days? Politics? Religion? Relationships? Sexual orientation? Public acceptance? In all honesty there’s no real answer to this question, the reason being is because to each individual person on this planet one thing may be harder to talk about than others. You may be in a relationship in which you may have EVERYTHING in common with the other person except for one thing, let’s say you believe in communication being the most important factor to a successful relationship, but your partner believes that that respect is more important. Although the two of you would right, you would still try and prove the other wrong by using facts or experience from past relationships. As I said, everyone has their topic in which the level of difficulty is higher than most, talking about my relationship with my partner is easy for me but talking about abuse…well now that’s something I’m pretty sure most people would agree is difficult. Not because they don’t know what to say, how to react, how to help…no, sadly one of the main reasons it’s difficult to talk about is because a lot of the time society doesn’t want to listen to it for whatever ridiculous reason. I speak about this from personal experience, I have been abused myself: mentally, emotionally, verbally, physically…. you name it.
In the relationship I was in back in a few years ago (for an 8-month period), everything started as normal as any other relationship. We were happy and thought we would spend the rest of our lives together. At what would turn out to be close to the end of the relationship everything started to aggressive, if I wanted to go with friends I would have to keep the other person updated as to when I would be home or who I was with. There would also be sometimes where they would start saying things like “are you talking to your other “partner”? I wouldn’t blame you if you were, you deserve better…” guilting me to stay with them to boost their own confidence. My cousin was graduating from high school that June and I promised him I would go to the graduation, my partner originally said they would go with me but then as the day got closer I still wanted to go but they suddenly didn’t, and I wasn’t going to force it. One thing that I was told, that should have been a red flag, was that if I went, I could forget about making any plans in the future and I should pack my things (we were living together at the time). I went to the graduation regardless thinking that this was just some fit because they may have forgotten about it and I didn’t. Fast forward to when we broke up, this is when the real mess began because even though we were broken up we were still living together, but just because we were living together didn’t mean anything should happen sexually right? Well, the other party didn’t see it that way.
I wasn’t ready to move back home because there were still too many issues there, so I stayed with them for a while and during the time we lived together but were NOT together, they would still act as if we were behind closed doors. I didn’t want to but at the time it seemed like maybe we would get back together, but we didn’t. The more I tried to talk the more aggressive they would get, I would get pinched on that flappy part of the arm and the inner thighs and have bruises left on them constantly, I would constantly be threatened to be thrown out if I didn’t do as commanded, I would be forced into sex even if I was not in the mood, I found out that they would still attempt to have sex with me while I slept. I would be told that I had no one who understood me but them so where would I go if I left? Who would I trust? When I finally sucked it up and went home, I thought it was all done…. not even close.
I lost my mom a few months after I moved back, and it was heartbreaking, I couldn’t focus, and the former partner knew this because they were there with me but that still didn’t stop them from pushing sex on me. Every time there was an opening there they were, and there they went again taking advantage of the state I was in. When I finally said enough, I was nearly run over by their car because they didn’t like that they were no longer getting easy sex or have control. I never told anyone about any of this because of the fear I had towards them. I learned later that they would twist things around to where they were the victim, they did the “right things”, I was the bad guy in the story they were telling. I remember every bruise I got from them, I would lie to my mom about how I got them. Every excuse I made as to why I couldn’t go visit friends or family, I would be told to just shut them out if they didn’t “believe” me, and I did. The excuses I made for the times they would lose their temper and drive off at dangerous speeds or punch holes or dents into cars or walls….it was ridiculous.
I could go on about everything else that happened but for the sake of keeping things somewhat short, I’ll move on. My point in this is that, when it comes to your safety or the safety of others the first thing you need to do as a “bystander” is look for the signs. If you suspect your friend or relative or other form of loved one is in some form of danger, you need to ask them “is everything ok?” most people in an abusive relationship will show some sort of obvious sign like a sudden look of fear or shock on their face, hesitation/avoidance/refusal to answer the question, fiddling with their fingers, playing with their hair, suddenly being nervous and starts looking around as if they suspect being spied on, gets unexpectedly defensive and make an attempt to leave. There are also those who have, unfortunately, been in the toxic relationship so long, they learned how to prevent these signs from showing, so they act as normal as they always do but you must keep insisting that you are there for them no matter what. Hopefully one day, they’ll confide in you and ask for help OUT of the relationship.
Abuse is not something that needs to be pushed to the back of a shelf to allow it to become a dust collector, it’s something that needs to be put up front and ready to fix. Our society is constantly saying that violence is never the answer and that we need to stop letting it happen. I agree, I’m sure we all do, but we can’t do that if we don’t know where most of the violence is. We only see or know what we see in social media or in the news, or they are on a daily basis told that it can’t happen to guys because they have to be “strong and tough it out”, or simply because “you shouldn’t have done (and/or said) what you did” causing you to be the one who “started the mess in the first place”. It’s sad, but there are some people who would use a medical or mental condition as a reasoning to the actions of the abuser, some people say they may be bipolar, some say they have Dissociative identity disorder (DID), also known as multiple personality disorder, but have no professional or certified doctor confirm the diagnosis. I heard a story one time at one of those public speaker convention things where a couple were in a relationship for years and within the first year of that relationship the guy had mentioned to the girl that he had Asperger Syndrome (a form of autism) but that he hoped it wouldn’t affect their relationship. She assured him that it would not because she was best friends with someone who has a sibling with autism, and of course once his mom knew that the girl knew the condition she confirmed that a family doctor had diagnosed him as a child. There would be sudden outbursts of anger at the most ridiculous things and sometimes overreact with others, but he and his mother insisted that it was because of the mental condition and that he doesn’t mean it. Later, when the girl finally managed to get away from him and time goes by where they had not spoken to each other, she thought that it was all finally behind her. Unfortunately, it was not. About 8 months later he contacts her and they get together to talk and he apologized to her for the torment he had put her through and were about to go their own ways, every time she tried to walk away he would stop her and try to keep the conversation going and when she finally told him that they talked and there was no more to say and she wanted to just go home, he pinned her down against the wall of the closest building. He told her that they would be done talking when he was done. Thankfully there was someone nearby who came to her aid and he was arrested.
There are way too many more things that I would love to say when it comes to this but there isn’t enough time in the day or space on this “box” so I think I’ll save more thoughts on this for next time, but I want to try and encourage you to please take time to look around you when you go out and about on your day. Even the little things can sometimes turn out to be a big help. Below I have some links that I found before, during and after I finished typing this mess up and hope that you find some of the information helpful if you find yourself in either the shoes of someone who can help another, or someone who needs help yourself. I’m not going to lie, my grammar if probably horrible but I don’t really care, the more important part is that I want to try and help people in need however I can, even if it’s just with simple text. I’ve lived in fear most of my adult life and sadly I am still going through the struggles from the past that refuse to leave me alone. But I am doing everything I can to move forward and not let it get me down. I hope that my posts help out at least one person one day, I will continue to post my thoughts on the topics I feel may help someone who might be struggling with something because that’s the kind of person I am. Have a good day/night/whatever applies to you 😊
https://www.helpguide.org/articles/abuse/domestic-violence-and-abuse.htm#speak
https://www.refinery29.com/domestic-violence-statistics-2017
https://www.verywellmind.com/child-abuse-statistics-2633350
https://www.autismspeaks.org/what-autism/asperger-syndrome
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