Im never nervous about opening a vein here or in person with my fam/friends; when I share something deeply personal, I always learn something and connect with someone in a way that makes me thankful I did. But I must admit that even as open and candid as I tend to be, even I had to take a few deep breaths before posting this one. Nevertheless, here goes!! Lets have a ❤️ to ❤️ and get personal, FB fam (as if I dont TMI you on a very daily basis! LOL). Very early in a young, new friendship, an exceptional gentleman has recently provided a mirror for me to check myself (for which I am grateful 😊). Admittedly, Im still processing what came of our conversation and what follows are not complete thoughts. This kind gentleman and I spoke at length about ourselves, including our past relationships and one subject that came up was interpersonal violence within a relationship. Now you can absolutely count me in that number of peeps that vehemently declared such a thing would never ever ever ever ever ever happen to me. So I suppose it was the way he asked the question that made me reevaluate two incidents in my past. I told him of one time at age 20 when the guy I was dating grabbed me and slammed me against a wall and across the room to prevent me from leaving and a second, separate incident at age 25 when the guy I was dating was upset that I confronted him about looking through my caller ID and shoved me into a corner, preventing me from leaving the bathroom. I wasnt injured either time, both relationships ended shortly after these incidents and in the latter I actually slammed the gent against the wall (which ended the confrontation). I relayed these stories to him and the silence that followed provided the opportunity for me to ask myself: Why had I never considered this a form of a physical Abuse or interpersonal violence? If my 20-something brain didnt consider it such, why hadnt I told anyone? I knew it wasnt normal. I hadnt witnessed abuse in a single relationship I had witnessed throughout my formative years. Hell, I thought one flew over the cuckoos nest when my father literally roared at my brother in overhearing him once call me a whore because I was beating him at a video game; Nothing of the sort was tolerated In my childhood home. The silence provided no answers that made sense. Ive thought back to so many girlfriends that experienced similar and at the time I raged against this behavior, never once thinking about my own experiences. Why? The only thing Ive come up with even days later is that 1) I didnt feel threatened and felt no fear and 2) It was anathema to me to think of myself as a victim. SMDH. WTH, Sembene (Yea, this required 3rd person)???! Im struggling with this because these things certainly dont change the behavior but those are the only reasons Ive come up with for why I would have denied I had ever experienced anything of the sort up until the last few years of my life. It gave me profound pause and made me think about the responsibility that I have to/for myself. Im not responsible for predicting these experiences, but I am responsible for paying attention to those incidents that may foretell of a propensity for violence and acting upon that as opposed to making excuses or flat out denying what it means. Many men and women have been laid to rest because they told themselves it was a one time thing in the heat of the moment, never to happen again. Its akin to those experiences some of us can relate to when weve suspected a significant other of being unfaithful; very rarely was there an absolute dearth of warning signs. We just had 101 reasons why it wasnt a duck even though it was quacking its azz off. Please dont misinterpret my words; Im not engaging in victim blame. Im simply suggesting that running the prevent or taking proactive steps early trumps picking up the pieces and breaking from such a cycle later. I know there are no simple answers. I consider myself to be a strong person of very average intelligence and yet I have no explanation that makes sense for why I minimized these incidents. Though the relationships ended soon after, the episodes of violence werent even the catalyst in either situation for me choosing to walk away. Thats something I will continue to work through for myself. Im ever so grateful to this special gent for providing the mirror reflecting my need to sweep around my own front door, dig deeper and continue to reach for growth. #everaworkinprogress
Posted on: Thu, 03 Apr 2014 20:40:24 +0000
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