How is life after abuse?
Trigger warning: this is a blog post with detailed description of physical, emotional and sexual abuse. You can pass on this one if you're not feeling well or if you don't want to be triggered.
I'm watching Maid again, the Netflix show about abuse and domestic violence. I think I watched it so many times I know by heart every detail on every scene. I see myself, watching this show again, and I see my mom, who watched the most triggering television films over and over again. Every time, I spend the rest of the night ugly crying. I think it may be the exact feeling I'm chasing, the powerful earthquake of being triggered, in a safe, controlled format. Because I don't want to forget this feeling of being trapped, when everything you know is abuse. I'm out now, I've not experiences domestic violence in any form or shape since I met my husband eight years ago, but I'm still struggling with PTSD.
My husband had a relatively safe childhood. I saw the look in his eyes when my trauma-induces jokes were a bit too much. For the first time in my life, I had clear boundaries of what was normal and what wasn't. I mean, when people asked about my childhood, I always told them it was kind of abusive but not that much, not like other people who were real victims. Damn. This is a letter to myself, I guess.
You've seen pieces of furniture grow moss on the garden after having been thrown through the window. You've seen fear on your brother's eyes. You've seen him being physically controlled so that he doesn't demolish your brother's face. You've seen him repair a fist-sized hole in the wall. You've suffered long rage spankings, please make it stop. You've heard him mock some other abuser he saw on tv at dinner time, you have heard him say "it's not that hard, I'll never raise a hand on my children" and you have felt the room filled with a loud, collective silence. You stayed in your car seat when he parked on the side of the highway and dumped your mother out of the car. You also stayed in your car seat every time he drove you home, drunk, even when he crashed the car. Because it was the pillar's fault, of course. When he crashed the car in a tree, it was the tree's fault. Because he was the best driver alive, he said. He never had an accident, he said, thanks to his astounding reflexes, he said. Well, the actual accidents do not count because it was the other driver's fault. Because other driver's are like your mom, or yourself, or your brothers, who are all collectively bad drivers. Actually, he wouldn't let us use his car. Because, he is the only one actually capable of driving, to be honest. The good thing is, you're now immune to being a passenger with someone who drives incredibly fast.
How absurd it is, written like that. How absurd. I won't stop. I won't stop because 15 years later I still need to watch triggering tv shows to remember why I'm phobic of driving. Or why it felt absolutely normal when I had a cervical injury during a car crash and I refused to go to the ER. Inversely, light touch on my back feels like a million lightnings. It's called central sensitization syndrom, or fibromyalgia, or nociplastic pain. It's when you experience trauma in such a fucked up way your brain makes fucked up connections in the neural paths that manage pain. I need to write this shit. I've had this blog post in the back of my throat for a long time. I need to write this shit and share it with the world, because my brain can't be the archive center of all these memories. So. Back to the list of fucked up stuff that happened to me. Knowing exactly what step of the stairs make a creaking noise, for example.
Suddenly, at 25, you realize you're not tiptoeing anymore. You walk with the heel first and it makes a noise, the exact noise it is supposed to make when someone walks on wood floors, and you're not afraid anymore. You used to live in the land of silence, and now you laugh when the cat literally gallop through your bedroom at 4 in the morning. You no longer have to wake up in the middle of a school night to curl up with the dog in the front porch. Back then, you knew that if the dog barked you'd soon enough hear the familiar whining of a dog being beaten up. This whining is printed in the back of your head. You've felt the dusty tangled fur, bony hips, tensed muscles, rotten teeth, smelly necrosis wound nobody took care of, cold heavy chain around an injured neck. You've hugged that dog thinking love is the only thing I can give. You thought when I grow up I'll make a shelter for abused animals and we'll lick our wounds together. And you kinda did.
I spent ten years studying fear-free education, psychology, ethology oe zoology in my free time. I'm strong in my own boots. I learnt how to care for another live being. We are the couple people call when they have a bad case of abused or feral pet. And we've seen the sparkle slowly come back in their eyes. We are known to be a caring couple. I still ask my partner if I'm allowed to take this or that from the fridge, though. And my husband inevitably answer "yes, honey, this is your fridge too and you don't have to ask me first when you need to eat something".
Because it didn't end after you left your first home. You moved out at seventeen thinking this is over. But this was absolutely not. You spent years skipping meals and counting cents. You became very sick. You had to learn how to read a fucking map at eighteen because he said he was the only one brilliant enough to read directions and he never teach you. He never teach you shit, actually. He had some knowledge in reading maps, recognizing trees and birds. He kept this knowledge as his little shiny proof that he was better than you were. Because you were a kid and he never teach you, how would you know stuff? At 26, you learnt how to recognize birds and you thought fuck how wrong was he? Everything was a buzzard, back then. Now you know that all big brown birds are actually not always buzzards and there are twenty-four different birds of prey in your country. The great grand bird watcher was wrong, finally.
It didn't stop. You dated the most violent pieces of shit you met. You've been beaten up for good. You've had real bruises and real red marks. They told you weren't allowed to fold their clothes, or make dinner or buy the weed because they knew how to do it better. Actually, they were the best clothe-folder and dinner-maker and weed-buyer alive. And you believed them. You became sicker. You skipped classes and smoked weed and drank an insane amount of alcohol. You dumped an abusive partner just to move to another abusive partner. You learnt how to pack your bag and leave. You crashed in your friend's couch. Your belongings were scattered in five different apartments but you had nowhere to call home. Actually, the most home you felt was in your leather jacket, so you slept in it. Everyone around you seemed blank and dorky, you actually found companionship with drunk 40-something men on the streets. You tried to leave you last partner several times. You actually went away and turned you phone off. Just to turn it on later and find 25 missed calls and go back. Go back in the city of whining dogs.
I don't think I have more memories to share. I still gag when I encounter someone with a denim jacket of salt-and-pepper long hair or a shaved head. I met my husband at 22. He waited through my most unhinged behaviors. I think I spent the first few years threatening him. I told him I was free and I could pack my bags and leave anytime. Actually, I told him every other week you know I don't need you? I can pack my bags and leave, anytime. And he waited. He said, yes, you can. Actually, I wish you'd pack and leave anytime you want because you are not trapped in this house. You can leave. I'd love you to stay, but you can leave. And he watched me get wasted and sleep with drunk older men I met on the streets. And he told me he loved me and this behavior was self-harm. And he asked me to stop for my own good, and he watched me go back to square one because I'm free and I can do whatever I want. Somehow I stopped. Therapy and meds finally worked. He provided money for two and he took care of us. We built a life together. We went through my illnesses, death of loved ones, severe financial struggle and a gazillion career-switch on both parts. No piece of furniture have been broken so far. We fight once a year, and the fight actually consists of cold shoulders for two days max., followed by deep conversations and a three-steps plan to make our life better again. We took care of the most ill, broken pets. We teach our pets they can throw tantrums, have emotions, pain and mixed feelings, and they won't be hit or abused. We laugh together. I'm pregnant now. Our friends make jokes about how our kid will be radically loved, respected and well-cared for. I love this man. I can't wait to meet our baby. I can't wait to meet the parents we are. I know the first kid can be tough for couples, but I also know we are strong. My own cycle of abuse and generational trauma stopped with us. We have tools and knowledge, and love, and jokes, and friendship. I still struggle with employment or driving, but I know we're experts in caring for vulnerable beings. I feel safe. Now, this blog post is an archive of all the trauma-induced memories that keep me up at night. I'm not the only one to know this shit anymore. I'm not sure I've written it all before. This blog post is a reminder that I got out of abuse and this may be why a lot of things are harder for me than they are for people who didn't experience this kind of trauma. I want to remember because my body does.
Anyway. Thanks for reading my trauma-dump. I'd love to read your comment, you can e-mail me if you want. <3 Take care! <3