Too long you played your games inside my head
Made me the scapegoat of your brokeness
Milked my raw pain to cream your comforting
Named your needs mine then blamed my neediness.

You took the meek of my fragility
As your strength’s proof, let loose to hold my heart
You scorned the naked shape of what I am
While silk-shot ego dressed your every part.

I was the target of displaced self-hate
While you swam, swan-like, forwards toward day
Trapped in your shade, I cowered in the dark
While your voice mocked me, “Come on out to play!”

O, how your callous laughter broke on me
Like acid waves, to etch into my mind
My stark unloveliness, proved by unlove.
And, all the while, you told me you were kind.

Was this your mercy? Mercy to yourself,
Dismembering my trust to patch your soul,
So that the mirror of your self-regard
Could show yourself exquisite, clean and whole.

To keep his blessed armor hard he ate

     lean meat, cruciferous greens, few

     grains. He likes his instants

parceled out in reps and sets, and he was glad to dangle like an ape from an iron bar, admiring his bicep bulge (amen): He worked hard

     the slant board, the oblique

          twist, and his own form

waxed and polished, his house a bleached vault where he lit votive candles to the clear persistence of his little self though no one else

     showed up. He liked

     the slammed door, the map’s red line, to stomp a clutch, to clutch the black wheel, to wheel away in steaming rage.

               He was a preacher fond

of Revelation. His truth was slant,

his facts oblique. He sought a righteous girl, articulate,

     whose slang he could steal

     for his opaque and soporific sermons– a girl all clean and bare in her nethers with mouth of Cupid’s bow–someone to dress in white and hold

     struggling under water, to warp

the iron of, till she melted. To her

he gave and gave. He gave all

     the all he had, which wasn’t much.

Internally, when I hear this question, I cringe, because it feels like it is missing the point and coming from a perspective which does not understand the dynamics of abuse. Before I answer this question, I like to tell people, “Think terrorism.” No one asked Gracia Burnham, after her horrible experience as a hostage of terrorists, “Why didn’t you leave?” Abusers are terrorists.  And while it might look like a woman enables her abusive husband by staying in an abusive relationship, her leaving does not only not free her from that relationship (especially if she has children), but she risks the abuse escalating.

While I’d love to dismiss the whole question as irrelevant and coming from a wrong understanding of abuse, another part of me wants to do my best to shed some more specific light on the difficulties of “just leaving” an abuser, for those who genuinely and caringly wonder, “Why won’t she just leave?”

Here are a few very real reasons why a woman might stay in an abusive relationship:

1. It is more dangerous to leave than to stay. Remember, “Think Terrorist.” Gracia Burnham’s husband and the nurse that was kidnapped with them were killed DURING the rescue. Likewise, an abused woman’s risk of being killed goes up significantly when she decides to leave her abuser. An abuser, like a terrorist, never responds calmly to boundaries or self-protection on the part of his victim/target. Control is too beneficial to easily let go of. The threat to an abused woman and her children is great when the abuser’s control is challenged in any way. Leaving is the ultimate challenge to that control. Escaping the terror of abuse can be done, but the process is often more dangerous in the short term than staying.  (This is relative of course, and I’m not making a statement of how “worth it” or not the danger is, just trying to show that there is no simple solution to “escaping” the danger of an abuser.)

2. The children.  Although no fault divorce and shared parenting laws have arisen to address abuses of earlier laws, they do not make things easy for a mom who leaves her partner to protect her children from that partner, even if he is verifiably violent (and many times his violence is not verifiable. Or even with proof to the contrary, the abuser is able to convince the judge his partner is lying and he is the safe and sane parent.) If a woman leaves an abuser, the result is often that her children will then be left alone with the abuser for regular periods of time. Worse yet, sometimes when women try to protect their children by talking about the abuse in a custody battle, they actually end up losing custody.  Again, the threat to his control is responded too with escalating and, very often, amazingly effective tactics of convincing the wider world that Mom is very unstable. A woman may decide to stay, then, simply because she knows if she leaves, she will risk her children’s safety.

3. Lack of resources. Soon after I separated from my abuser, I heard that on average, abused women return to their abusers seven times before they stay away for good. I had no trouble understanding why. As a single mom of four young children, I knew that I would have had to have gone back if another family had not opened their home to us. And kept it open for a whole year. And family and friends helped support me in numerous (and that would be an understatement) ways–financially, watching the children, going to meetings with me, believing me. Although I never completely returned to my abuser (I did work hard at reconciliation for a time, though, before pulling completely away for my sanity), I was very aware that I would have no choice if I had not had a place to stay and help which enabled me to care for my children.

4. Mental stability. I think some people who ask the question, “Why does she stay?” are already questioning the stability of an abused woman. And certainly, I was not at my most stable at the point that I separated. But, I also think observers of abuse often confuse cause and effect. By the time I separated I was very nearly a total basketcase. A primary tactic of abuse is to destabilize as a means of staying in control. And destabilizing works. Mind games drive you crazy. It doesn’t take very many mind games for even a very stable and smart woman to begin to question reality. I suffered mental and emotional vertigo and, again, without the support of friends, probably could not have managed to have separated from my abuser and survived in my weakened state (Remember the terrorist model–victims of terrorism need help to recover. It is difficult for an abused woman,  already beaten down in every way to have resources left to cope with separation and survival and single parenting, without support.)

Do you have some other reasons why leaving an abuser is extremely difficult? Please share them here. The above is not a final or complete statement on the topic, but rather some introductory thoughts, which I hope will stimulate further conversation.

I remember being excited to find this website called that very thing: youarenotcrazy!

You are not crazy. Your abuser is doing and saying crazy things. But you are not crazy. 

You are not crazy.  You feel unsteady. That is a normal response to abuse. Because ABUSE is what is crazy. Your abuser is doing and saying things that are, by their nature, destabilizing. You feel unsteady from those things. Feeling unsteady and off center is a normal reaction to destabilization.

Think earthquake. The house is shaking. You feel unsteady. You can fall over easier than when the house is not shaking. You are wobbling. Maybe grabbing to hold on to something (I don’t know–I’ve never been in an earthquake. I have been in an abusive relationship). My point is that you feel and show the unsteadying effects of the problem. But the problem itself is not you. The problem is the earthquake. Calling yourself clumsy and uncoordinated because you are having a hard time standing during an earthquake misses the point and is unproductive. Finding a safe way to stabilize yourself as best as possible during the shaking is more productive.

You are not crazy. The abuse IS crazy. By its very nature. You are not, by your very nature, unstable. Even if you need help to hang on and survive the shaking. You may need help because of the effects of longterm destabilization (earthquakes and the unsteady feelings that result pass quickly, abuse goes on and on and on). But don’t fall into the abuser’s trap of thinking that because you are feeling unstable, that your instability is the problem. You are not crazy and your emotional wobbliness is an effect of the abuse you are facing, not the cause.

Here’s what Lundy Bancroft says,

If your partner criticizes or puts you down for being badly affected by his mistreatment, that’s abuse. Similarly, it’s abuse when he uses the effects of his cruelty as an excuse, like a client I had who drove his partner away with his verbal assaults and then told her that her emotional distancing was causing his abuse, thus reversing cause and effect. He is kicking you when you’re already down, and he knows it. Seek help for yourself quickly, as this kind of psychological assault can cause your emotional state to rapidly decline. (Why Does He Do That? pgs. 126, 127)

I highly recommend this book as another stabilizing factor to help assure you that you are not crazy. The above quote is from a section answering the question, “Is the way he is treating me abuse?”  Although my husband had never hit me and did not abuse through name calling or yelling, Mr. Bancroft’s checklist of 12 things made it very clear to me that what I was experiencing was abuse–10 of the points were happening in our relationship. The examples he gave helped me see that I was not making this up or imagining it. The 12th point is “You show signs of being abused.” Every one of those was true about me. Ironically, my husband had been using those things in me as reasons for his anger and proof that I was off my rocker. But, reading this book, I saw clearly that I was NOT crazy, and my fear, lack of energy, etc. were effects of the destabilization, not the cause of marriage problems.

From Why Does He Do That: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men, by Lundy Bancroft: 

“The abuser creates confusion because he has to. He can’t control and intimidate you, he can’t recruit people around him to take his side, he can’t keep escaping the consequences of his actions, unless he can throw everyone off the track. When the world catches on to the abuser, his power begins to melt away.” (p. 20)

I’m still coming out of the confusion and chaos of an abusive relationship. Divorced now, I have physical safety and do not live with constant fear. Still, because we have children, my abuser continues to have great power and continues to act, speak and interact in ways that are frightening and destabilizing to me, while maintaining a social aura that makes him look above reproach to those around him.  Even though I don’t live in constant fear now, it doesn’t take much for me to be frightened or vulnerable when it comes to having to interact with him.

Talking about the craziness, reading about abuse tactics, understanding the method behind the madness helps me to keep coming back to a place of solidness in spite of the destabilizing nature inherent to interactions with an abuser.

I hope this site will be a place for compiling stories, resources and encouragement that encourages women trying to regain their mind, stability and safety.  In a lot of ways, this blog is starting out as a personal journal–a place to write my thoughts as they come, to process the craziness I’ve experienced, to celebrate survival. I doubt it will be very systematic or organized, because abuse is only part of my life, but it has touched every part of my life.  Some days, I feel the gut wrenching pain. Some days, I think about abuse in logical ways. Some days I’m poring over books and other resources.

As this site takes shape, please share your stories, ask questions, make comments. Contact me, if you’d like, at eclexia1 at gmail dot com.