Tag Archives: physical abuse

A night at the movies…

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Woman watching movie with popcorn via travelssentials.comAnswer me oh my love, just what sin have I been guilty of?

Won’t you tell me where I’ve lost your love?

Please answer me sweetheart.

 

This was one of my father’s favorite songs by Nat King Cole. I know all the words.

The other day the song popped into my head and I had a whole new appreciation of the first two lines. If you can hear these words coming out of the mouth of an abused woman you will understand where I am going with this post.

Imagine you are looking at a movie, there is a couple that is wildly in love and after an amazing courtship they have a great marriage. A few years into the marriage, she is being picked apart…at first, just little stuff like the way she combs her hair or the way she laughs out loud. The things that were engaging and cute now become irritating.

She begins to see herself as “not good enough” for him anymore.

Isolation begins to set in. She feels isolated from him, from her friends and family and from herself.

She begins to feel inferior to him and others.

She may begin to self diagnose as “crazy” or “hysterical” and she accepts the pathologies and looks for confirmation that she is sick.

She gets diagnosed by a mental health professional as “depressed” and begins medication. Things at home never change for the better. In fact, things get worse because even though she may be feeling better inside the outside nit picking does not let up.

By now, the situation at home may have escalated to physical abuse and sexual abuse.

Now she feels really bad and even more depressed!

She begins to hate herself and the only way she can dispel the self hatred and pain is to turn on other women and judge and gossip. She begins to look for people worse off than her and she feels relief from the judgment.

As an observer of the movie, it is sad to see her life get so messed up so quickly. As an observer you want to shout to her tell her to get out!

It’s easy to see when others are being sidelined and abused. It is not so easy to see it in ourselves.

If any piece of this scenario applies to you, take a moment to look at the whole movie about how it got to this point and follow your own advice… Get OUT!

 

Love and light,

Indrani

Silence like a cancer grows…..

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This line is borrowed from a very popular Simon and Garfunkel song.woman silenced via ivillage.com
It starts off with, “Hello darkness my old friend, I’ve come to talk to you again…”

This is the song of abuse.

Abuse is cyclical. Life is “good” and then there is an event, some supposed affront….then comes the violence, whether physical, verbal or both.

The cycle can be tracked. You can plot it on a calendar, just like a woman’s cycle.
The span of time between events can vary, but the “affront” will always be followed by violence. The abuser will always have VERY good reasons, why they were left without recourse, but to strike out.

It will be words like, “Look what you made me do.” Or “You always do this and I have no choice.”

One of the saddest and most telling stories I recently heard while in India was about a woman who had been set on fire by her husband. While in the rickshaw going to the hospital, the man fell at her feet crying that he was sorry but it was her fault for whatever she had done. He begged her not to tell the police that he had done it.

Guess what?

She lied to the hospital and to the police and she said it was an accident. She took the entire brunt of the incident, the physical torture, the emotional torture and the blame. She thought that he would “love” her more, since she showed how strong she was.

What she did not realize was that he cannot love.

If he was capable of love he would never have burned her.
He was only concerned with NOT being caught and put in jail.
This story is gruesome, and it is sad and you may be tempted to say “ah, my story is nothing like this.”
Be careful of dismissing this too quickly, as it holds many lessons for us.
It tells us to be aware of the cycles.
It tells us to have faith and courage in OUR TRUTH.
It tells us to be strong in our convictions.
Most of all, it tells us to allow the authorities to do their jobs.

What secrets are you holding?
What wrongs are you accepting blame for that were not your fault?
Who are you letting off the hook by making YET another excuse for their poor behavior?
Silence like a cancer grows.
Remove the cancers.
Speak up.
Speak out.
Speak.

Love and light,
Indrani