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I have been thinking about how I can describe my experience of domestic abuse so that someone would understand it. Its not the physical aspects of the abuse but the psychological aspects of it that I don’t know how to explain. If I say ‘psychological abuse’ I don’t feel confident that it will be understood or impact upon someone in the way defining other forms of abuse do. How do I describe the way i’ve felt like i was going insane, the stripping away of my own sense of myself, living and hiding in fear, because of the behaviour of someone else. I feel like he put his fist inside my head without leaving a physical wound that anyone could see. I’ve been living in a nightmare, but all anyone else could see was my strange behaviour. If I said to a member of my family, for example, that i’ve suffered psychological abuse, I get blank stares and silence. It seems like they think, ‘she looks alright to me, she’s just made some bad choices’, like I had a choice.
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I feel the same. Raped and hit without being raped and hit. Emotional abuse is worse than physical because it is difficult to prove it and we are in doubts.
I just noticed that there are people who understand. I talk to them mostly. Some people don’t, but just because they have never being trapped.
Abusers make us to loose our human dignity, this is their target. To distroy us, our self esteem, our strength, our identity.
This their target. Only when abusing they feel happy. When they make you feel bad and guilty they don’t feel bad and guilty themselves. -
As well as being physically violent, what’s worse is that he destroyed my mental health and made me suicidal.
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Hi, KIP. All that kept me going at times was my daughter, what would happen to her if I wasn’t there? I actually started self-harming though. Thank goodness that has stopped. I can’t believe that I would have done that to myself, I always cared for myself, especially my health. But his behaviour put me in that place, in that mindset. x
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KIP
Same to me (
Feeling like not a human. No sole, no targets in the life, no point to live. Like a zombie.
Not worth for anything good in this life.
Gulty and on life sentence without court, lawyer or right for the speech.
He accused, prosecuted, sentenced, punished, found me guilty. Again and again.-
Hi, summerday, I think it feels like being a zombie. In my case I had to deaden how I felt around him. I couldn’t laugh or feel emotion spontaneously because he might take offence. So I silenced myself, and hid really inside myself when I was around him. Otherwise he would look at me with a look in his eyes that said that he hadn’t given me permission to feel happy. Its a good thing that you have insight into his behaviour. I didn’t know what was happening to me, I just thought I was going mad, fortunately I found out through Women’s Aid about the pattern of abuse and that’s when I started to step back and see what it was he was doing and how it was affecting me. I saw that he was ruining my health and he was going to destroy my life if I didnt get away from him. I hope you can get your freedom from him. Take care of yourself and put yourself first, because you do still have your dignity. x
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Unless someone has been through it I don’t think anyone really understands what it is like no matter how you explain it to people… its hard really hard
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I can’t find the way to explain it, cupcakes. I tried to talk about it many years ago with my mother and sister, when my daughter was very young but I could see by the way they looked at me that it was something I was probably going to have to keep to myself. I looked elsewhere for help and I’m glad I did now, since it led me to Women’s Aid. I just think there’s got to be a way for people who haven’t experienced it to be able to appreciate just what it does to a person’s mentality. Especially the effects of fear. xx
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Even though I was grabbed by the throat n pinned many a time, I’d rather he would of battered me, than the way he turned everything good about me into a bad thing. Humiliated, triangulated with out being able to speak up for myself. Walking on eggshells to keep him happy sacrificing my own being to keep the peace, or someone I loved would get punished. Judge jury executioner all in the space of a second just so he could see my face go pure white. Blamed all on his mental health and my fault for triggering it. When he triggered my depression anxiety and want of suicide n many thoughts and plans to do it. I’d rather be dead than with him is what I learned.
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Cherrydrops. That’s like my experience too. He took everything I felt good about and he sullied it, poisoned it. I couldn’t feel good about a thing, unless he nodded and said, go on, you can smile about that. He resented anything I’d achieved, anything I could feel proud about and told me that it was all c**p. If I tried to speak up for myself he threatened to get destructive or aggressive. I made decisions out of fear, rather than hope, and haven’t lived the way I would have liked to but at least, as the years go by, and my daughter is getting older, I can see a point at which I can be fully free of him. x
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Yes, it is like your brain has been re wired and you are constantly trying to re wire it… I have suffered such a lot, I don’t even like many people now..become a misanthrope. I find it hard to trust anyone, worst of all myself. I made terrible choices. I was coerced but some of it was me, thinking oh they love me really…Love is kind, love is not cruel.
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Hi teatime, I’ve also thought of it as his ‘malware’ in my head. For years I have had such a negative opinion about people. I really lost my faith generally in people, but its important to remember that some people really helped me to see what was happening and I know that there are good people out there really trying to do their best. Not everyone is like him. x
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Thankyou, ladies, for your replies. I think I would describe it the way you have too. It is a slowly destructive thing that kills you on the inside and yes, makes life feel like its not worth living. Its a mental prison. Its very hard to hold onto positive feelings of joy or happiness or hope. I realised I had stopped genuinely smiling or laughing. Belief in all those valuable qualities such as trust or loyalty are lost, as well as self-confidence and self-esteem. Its a prison that we must find our way out of and see a future where we have all those good feelings back and can start to believe in other people again. I think in my case, when I seemed to be functioning okay on the outside people didn’t see what it is that I was struggling with on the inside, so when I tried to tell them, perhaps they thought i was doing okay. Its changed me and I don’t think I’ll ever be the same again but I do think I can be happy again and regain my positivity. Take care everyone. xx
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Hi there still here,
I agree it’s so hard to explain…it’s been nearly a decade since I left so when ppl ask why I got left/got divorced I just say he was a bully & skirt over it….which doesn’t feel right as it feels like I’m trivialising DV!! I think a lot of ppl dont fully understand DV. Then again i/we have to heal & move on with our lives…that’s what we left for…for happier positive lives….
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Hi, Shipoffools. Thank you for your reply. To acquaintances and others I just describe my daughter’s father as a ‘difficult’ or ‘tricky’ character and I don’t elaborate because I’ve no intention right now of discussing it openly. But with people who are closer its different. I appreciate what you say about feeling that you’re not giving that experience its full weight. I want to give it the right degree of weight too because it matters, and principally it matters to me. In the future I plan to be much more open about it. I don’t see why I shouldn’t. I think I’m anticipating that moment of openness as cathartic, but maybe it won’t be. I can’t know. But one of the big deals with my daughter’s father is how important his ‘image’ is. He’s kept his behaviour very hidden and thinks he’s flown under the radar. He’s expected me to keep my mouth shut. x
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Hi still here
I think you’ve brought up a really really good point…I’ve really struggled to explain what happened to me and my children to other than close friends and my sister….Id love to be able to explain it in a clear and not too lengthy way….that gives it the importance it deserves.
After all it changes our lives massively, especially if we have had to leave our homes, and belongings, become homeless for a time, move towns, leave our jobs and local friends behind and our children have had to start new schools and make new friends…it’s a huge change? Me saying my ex was a bully doesn’t really cover it??!!
How do other ladies explain it? I guess it’s no ones right to know…but we’ve nothing to be ashamed about if we want to speak up and hopefully raise awareness?
Xx
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It’s living in a war zone front line 24 7, without any idea what weaponry will be pulled on you. There’s no break, continue ual living on eggshells, never knowing what perceived wrong you have done suddenly out of nowhere or what consequence.
Feeling battered is emotional, psychological and physical and people understand battery..
It’s unpredictable and ruins any sense of stability, never knowing where the next ‘assault’ of whatever kind will come from.
Soldiers get a break from the frontline, whereas we sleep with the enemy!
Sadly the children experience this total instability and fear of unknown and inconsistency.
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It is a war zone in your own home, and the person who you thought was your friend lover has been replaced by a monster. I have been following (Detail removed by Moderator) and he said that only those who have been through it understand and that if you tell others the details of the psychological abuse you can seem like the crazy one. He said that his partner would wake him up in the wee hours by screaming! My abuser played with my mind I often wished he would hit me as at least then I would have something to show. I mentioned gaslighting to a mental health professional and was met with incredulity. I can imagine the assumption “this woman is delusional” I don’t think that anyone outside of this community really gets the levels of psychological bullying that can be meted out. For sometime I actually convinced myself that it was all me and then when I finally realised it was true I wondered who would believe me it was too awful to comprehend. I was right my family believe him to this day,he has told them that it was me. He got to them first and that’s how they do it. I will not be telling others apart from those who understand. Most people don’t want to hear it or just don’t believe it. Maybe now that people are wakening up to the levels of sexual abuse in society they will begin to understand that it is down to access and an innate ability to manipulate and intimidate. No wonder it is so dangerous for us when we decide to leave. Before suffering this I had no idea.
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To you all…..
My fellow survivors.
I salute you.
May no woman ever go through what we have been through.
It is living hell.
Even after breaking free I still feel controlled.
But surviving we are.
Don’t let the b******s win.
We are better than that!
One minute/hour/day at a time….
We CAN do this
Let’s prove to our daughters, the younger generation of women who we encounter, women of all ages, religions and classes that we will not tolerate this anymore.
We are NOT victims.
We are survivors.
We WILL inspire and motivate the next generation to speak out.
Stay safe everyone.
JaneEyre xx -
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