askyermom

I found an undated page of notes to myself. It reads: Safety is not just physical; pain is not just physical. Feeling safe to be yourself at home without ridicule or emotional attack seems like a pretty basic requirement.

Without a date on it, I can still place the page. It’s from a time when I was working hard to untangle my motives. I was so worried about overreacting to mistreatment I wasn’t really considering the mistreatment itself. I was snagged on the idea that abuse has to be largely physical, as if it was a legal concept, as if I was going to have to explain myself to some judge in pearls in front of everyone.

During that time, I called a therapist to try to set an appointment. “I am being verbally abused every day,” I said, “and my life is intolerable.”

She breathed at me through the phone, quite upset herself, “I am not going to help you cope with being mistreated. That’s not what I do.” Fair enough, I thought, once I recovered from the shock of her refusal.

I follow online updates from a woman who recounts tiny episodes of her long deteriorating marriage to a narcissist. I nod along to her little encouraging messages. I imagine hearing her when I was in the beginning of my journey and I know she is sending hope to at least one other woman.

Hey, little lady, you deserve to be heard and loved and protected. You can keep trying to make a home in the median strip of a mad highway, but if you want to get out of that traffic and make your way to single wife town, we have a place for you. It’s cozy and quiet here.

The hardest part is deciding anything. When we are in the midst of a highly dysfunctional living situation, confusion is not only in the air, it is the air. We believe we cannot trust our own instincts and the only certainty is uncertainty. It’s awful, even for awful people.

Isolation works for cults and other control freaks. If you never see your life from the outside, or get feedback from an outsider you have invited in, you have no way to compare and contrast your situation with realistic options. The controller can keep you stuck in their web of lies with ease.

It used to be newsworthy when someone stumbled, blinking, out of the woods to learn about electricity and modern life, but I’ll bet it still happens even if we don’t hear about it. Captivity never goes out of style.

Over the years, I have had several encounters with people who may be trapped in plain sight, like I was. My only useful tool is small talk. “How are you feeling?” or “Can I bring you a pie later?” may be the key to letting a little daylight into their situation. I don’t just kidnap people, because I’m not that buff, and also it’s wrong. I can nudge and a nudge is not nothing.

Directly offering a safe space to someone who is being controlled is huge as is speaking up when you see mistreatment.

My situation began a slow final crumble after one person spoke up, with love. One clear voice can set a whole new group of training wheels in motion.

It also took a shit-ton of hutzpah to extricate myself. I made some mistakes. I should have spoken to a good lawyer, I could have done it sooner and so on, but I stayed safe while pulling the plug on a very sick life and I will never regret that particular magic trick.

Love,
yermom

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