Revisiting the cycle of abuse

Talking with a friend recently I recalled my experiences in abusive relationships. What struck me most wasn't that I had once again trapped myself in the insanity of that cycle, but how to this day I still feel the need to defend the abusers when I describe what happened.

The truth is, though, even the most controlling and abusive person does have good qualities. Even good intentions.

How does someone like me who prefers to see the good in people truly heal after escaping an abusive relationship?

Just like anyone else, I suppose. And, just like I, Heather, need to. Friends recommend: revenge fantasies, revenge acts, writing, talking, replacing, acceptance, and prayer.

Because the wounds from the experience now feel newly opened, I'm going to talk about them as if they are fresh. Years of therapy did bring a great deal of insight, but more recent experiences have taught me the seduction of the sickness remains.

There is a fine line between identifying my part in a harmful relationship and dismissing someone else's responsibility. In fact, I was just talking with a friend about how easy it is for some of us, once we experience the freedom that comes from identifying our own part in a relationship, to minimize or ignore actual wrongs done to us. In recovery it's essential that I don't harbor resentments. Resentments are what keep me sick. However, like my friend, sometimes it's so difficult to face the bad behavior of a loved one that I gloss over it and end up effectively blaming myself.

What was it like, being in this abuse cycle?

Intoxicating.

Passionate.

Exciting.

The ups were so up it's hard to describe. The downs were so intense I can honestly liken it to the experience of the car crash I had. Entirely dazed and shocked and gazing down at the wound gouged in my gut (a little embellishment in the comparison) wondering how it got there and realizing it hurt more than I thought possible.

But, oh, the ups. The times his tender self appeared, when he seemed as genuine and gentle as a five year old that I just wanted to scoop him up and comfort him forever. If I were to try, though, I learned quickly, to even look tenderly in his direction during those sweet times it was a 3/97%* chance I'd get SLAMMED into a figurative brick wall with all the force he could muster. Skull cracking force.

For me, the appeal was a lot like the appeal of gambling. Even something as trite as a slot machine. In go the quarters (or, later in the evening, the dimes, then the nickles) into the machine, pull the lever (hate those push buttons, but maybe that's all there is anymore, I don't know), will I get a cup full of shiny money? Or will there be a stale and flat mismatched set of images on the machine? The downs of the slots weren't nearly as punishing as the downs of the relationship. But, it was the ups that got me, and I wanted more. More of the ups. More more more. The ups were so seductive and my need to see the good in people was so strong I almost immediately forgot the tears and helplessness I felt when there was no reward.

Isolate the good in the experience and to this day I will defend them as valid. To this day I will think of the abuser mostly focused on those qualities that are good. Perhaps that's a weakness in me, or perhaps it's a survival skill, or, perhaps it's because those parts were actually lovely at times. I'm eager for any opportunity to forgive and find peace.

What needs to change in me still, I realize, is that tendency to wash away all the bad acts just so I can see the good.

As I wrote emails about this experience to a couple different friends they each echo back what I'm saying (as the best friends always do, help me hear me): what he did hurt me, it doesn't matter why he did it. And, even more important (as we all hurt each other at times, it's the nature of being human), he would have kept hurting me in irrational, manipulative, and mindfucking ways if I stayed with him.

It didn't matter that he described himself as poison. It didn't matter that I know he didn't want to hurt me. It didn't matter that I could tell he really did care about me. It didn't matter that he knew I didn't deserve such bad treatment. Just because he struggled didn't make the end result something I should accept.

I'm surprised, honestly, that after 20 years I still haven't fully learned these lessons. I do know that learning for me is like a pendulum, ever swinging back and forth between excessively healthy and harmful, growing closer and closer to serenity and peace. It surprises me, though, when I discover the pendulum is still swinging so widely. When lessons I know I learned over a decade ago come back as fresh as if they were brand new and hurt as if I had never healed.



*In re-reading this post before publishing I started with a 15/85%, then changed it to 10/90, then 5/95, and now, the most accurate 3/97% (3% being the likelihood he'd respond kindly/well to my tender advances).


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