Cycles

Domestic abuse falls into a common pattern, or cycle of violence:

• Abuse – Your abusive partner lashes out with aggressive, belittling, or violent behavior. The abuse is a power play designed to show you "who is boss."
• Guilt – After abusing you, your partner feels guilt, but not over what he's done. He’s more worried about the possibility of being caught and facing consequences for his abusive behavior.
• Excuses – Your abuser rationalizes what he or she has done. The person may come up with a string of excuses or blame you for the abusive behavior—anything to avoid taking responsibility.
• "Normal" behavior – The abuser does everything he can to regain control and keep the victim in the relationship. He may act as if nothing has happened, or he may turn on the charm. This peaceful honeymoon phase may give the victim hope that the abuser has really changed this time.
• Fantasy and planning – Your abuser begins to fantasize about abusing you again. He spends a lot of time thinking about what you’ve done wrong and how he'll make you pay. Then he makes a plan for turning the fantasy of abuse into reality.
• Set-up – Your abuser sets you up and puts his plan in motion, creating a situation where he can justify abusing you.

Your abuser’s apologies and loving gestures in between the episodes of abuse can make it difficult to leave. He may make you believe that you are the only person who can help him, that things will be different this time, and that he truly loves you. However, the dangers of staying are very real.

I may have to read this a few times before tonight. I may have to read and re-read and a third and a fourth time as I wait in the parking lot for the apologies that have already started.

They've happened before too, and just like this cycle. "I'm so sorry, I was such a jerk, I didn't think about you. I won't talk to her anymore...We have so many more problems than her and this is all your fault because you were mean and fighting with me before B and I ever starting talking. But I won't, I won't talk to her."

You'll be so sweet to me, you'll buy me dinner, you'll promise you'll get me to trust you again. Then you'll call me out for something stupid, "you rolled your eyes at me." "I didn't even feel it happen, I don't know what you're talking about." "Oh my god, I can't believe you won't just apologize for rolling your fucking eyes at me. I can't believe we're having a huge fight over this!" two weeks later. And right after that I'll have to sit through 57 minutes of agony as you talk to her in our dark bedroom with the tv on because you don't want me to hear.

It's exactly this cycle. You set me up to justify what you're doing.

I can't believe that I thought I deserved this for so long. I can't believe I let you talk me into thinking that you and B was my fault.

I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe.

Thank you for finally pushing me so far that I couldn't bend anymore. 

Complexes/Femme Invisibility

Last night I had a dream where I was at some sort of summer camp and all the lesbians I've ever known were outside playing/having sex/joking around/whatever in the water trough/pool area outside. I felt hurt, embarrassed, left out. My friend Lauren was with them even though she's always been straight and since we were the closest, I joked with her first, calling across the courtyard.

"Lauren, what the hell?" I tried to laugh. "Did you think I wasn't cool enough to invite or something?"

She looked at the girl next to her and then smiled at me, "We thought you were busy otherwise we totally would have invited you." She swam to the edge of the pool near me and I knelt down in front of her. I could feel them, all of them, staring at us while their hands skimmed along skin under the water.

"I can handle it," I assured Lauren, and then out of desperation and anxiety and fear I grabbed her and kissed her quickly. I felt nauseated. I wasn't attracted to her and everyone knew it. She was my friend, my good friend, and instead of making myself fit in I was just floundering further, drowning in the sea of manipulative games and subcultures and titles. Lauren looked at me - angrily, harshly, and I tried to backtrack. "Look, this doesn't mean you're gay or that I like you, I just-" I tried to explain that I wanted to prove myself but she cut my off.

"I don't know what you take me for," I'd never heard her so cold and harsh, "but I'm not gay. And if I were, I'd definitely go for the pretty femmes." I recoiled. Which you're not was implied in her sentence. I'd never been attached to the title of femme, but the way she tore it from me left me reeling - empty handed and wanting to cry.

I feel this a lot. I feel this all the time. Constantly defending and proving and feeling like my sexuality is not broadcast clearly enough. Constantly feeling as though "lesbian" is an exclusive club to which I am not invited or wanted. Constantly aggravated because I'm subjected to male gaze and overtures while easily passed over by lesbians and dismissed as less than or an outsider.

Maybe I'm not femme, but Femme Invisibilty seems to apply to me so easily.

I understand that it is my own shortcomings and brainwashings and past manipulations that have given me this not enough complex, but just because I know that doesn't make it go away. It's a trend in all my writings - not enough - and I'm trying so hard to tamp that down but then it rears up in dreams like this and I know it's still plaguing me.

Safe Space

I use theater terms a lot - terms which have come to apply to all aspects of my life. "Safe space" is a favorite. A physical, mental, and emotional space free of judgement, filled with support and understanding and trust, where honestly is valued about all else. I think of this very much as my safe space.

Sacred space - a place to connect, to breathe, to become a part of something or someone bigger and you leave your personal crap at the door. You come in as a blank slate, ready to learn, to be open, to explore.

I have a sacred space that I enjoy visiting, a short hop, skip and jump from my front door where the sounds of running water and birds whistling take away everything I was ever worried about. It's here that I can curl my fists in the sand or dip my toes in the water and feel as if the earth is surging inside of me. It is here where I become grounded.

I haven't visited in over a month, since my two jobs became exhausting and I wasn't sleeping at all, so I was shocked to come upon my sacred space and find it violated.

Because I place such importance in this place, the attack felt awkwardly personal. Horrifyingly meant for me. On top of that, the ducks who usually swim to me and beg for bread at my fingertips swam upstream immediately at the tall, dark figure I presented on the bank. They were terrified of me.

I was upset. I was angry. I seriously wanted to yell at someone or stand as a watchdog with pepper spray and a slingshot. I understand that kids tag urban areas and I've seen some really cool, beautiful street art, but this is in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of nature. This was an ugly word for an ugly reason and I hated it with every fiber of my being.

But I'll go back. I'll get used to it. I'll take it back for myself and find a way to make it part of my place. If there's ever a kid with a can of spray paint down there, however, I may just slap him/her.

Family Love/Hate

I love my family. I write about them a lot. I have fond memories of them and enjoy spending time with them. But sometimes I just want to smack them. Some of my family is desert redneck, and that's okay. They're good people, funny, know how to have a good time with a piece of plywood, some rope, and an ATV, and can make one hell of a mudslide (the drink). But, they also say some things I just can't handle - it comes with the territory.

My mom's cousin is one of those people who says a lot of things I disagree with. She's had it rough, fighting cancer and then later her daughter was born with Cystic Fibrosis. C was pretty cool - I have a lot of her art. She was fascinated with death and dying, big on the punk scene and Tim Burton movies. But she didn't make it past 16, and that was hard on her mom - on the whole family. After C died, my mom's cousin took a trip to Israel with her other daughter.

So here's the post I saw on Facebook today: The most amazing, spiritual & emotional 10 days of my life were spent in Israel. Hanging out in Downtown old Jerusalem. Being baptized in the Jordan. Actually touching the pavement where they forced Jesus to walk with his cross. The saddest pictures are of Ron and I on the beach in tel aviv, which is now empty because of the bombing. And lastly the empty tomb. Please pray for Israel and the Jewish people, "CHRISTIANS STAND BEHIND ISRAEL"

Blah, blah, blah, (Jesus didn't walk on pavement) blah, blah - "Christians stand behind Israel."  38 likes. I'm sorry, what? I'm not Christian, but I was raised Catholic so I should have a pretty fair idea of what this means and why people are getting behind it. But aren't Christians all for brokering peace? Didn't Jesus say he who is without sin, cast the first stone? Israel is bombing the hell out of Gaza and Hamas is trying like crazy to send out rockets, but their attempts are feeble in comparison. 

So what I'm hearing is that she's all for a religious and territorial war that she has no business being a part of or cheering for. If you want to pray for something, pray for peace, pray for resolution. Pray for both sides and the lives that have been lost in the names of gods which are all ultimately the same.

If you haven't read the Gazan Youth Manifesto for Change, read it now. It's halfway down the page, marked in bold with Manifesto.

Also, if you're interested, this is a NYT article focusing on the three generations of a family living in Gaza that were killed during an Israeli airstrike, as well as the emotional climate of the area right now.

Day 18 Better Me

30 Day Letter Challenge

Day 18 — The person that you wish you could be

The person I wish I could be or the person I wish I would be? I wish I could be a professional volleyball player, but I'm super short, have a sports injury to one knee and didn't start playing volleyball until junior high. I also wish I could be a violinist, but I've never picked up a violin, can't afford one and I'm pretty sure you have to start before you are five.

But the person I wish I would be, that's totally different. I wish I was more passionate and pushed myself to do the things I enjoy as a career. Whether it's singing, writing, theater, driving, photography, I think life would be easier if I truly loved what I do to earn to money for myself and my family. I wish I would be a better person, a more social person, a nicer person, a more forgiving and tolerant person.

I wish I would go to school to be a racecar driver because I would be really good at that.

These are all things I can change about myself. These are all things I can push myself to be if I really want to, if I have the motivation. But when I work 14-20 hour days and I'm exhausted when I come home and tired when I wake up, I just don't have the time or energy. I guess I could stop writing, but then I would just go crazy, and nobody wants that :)

Day 3 Redux Parents

30 Day Letter Challenge

Day 3 — Your parents

I can't wait until we get past all these embarrassing letters that I don't want to post to the fun ones!

Sometimes I sit and wonder what the world would be like without you. I know, that's a horrible thing to say, but I think you do the same for me. The choices you made would have been different. I think I trapped you, and you trapped me as well.

Mom, head to toe, I'm absolutely your daughter. You made me tolerant, open-minded, and kind. Because of you, I was eager to see the world, and jaded when it refused to live up to fairytale expectations. You fed me on hopes, dreams, and miracles, and when none of them saved you, you snuffed out the light of my world and threw away my pixie dust.

But I can't stay mad at you. You're the funniest person I know. You connect things in such a weird way that I never know what's going to come out of your mouth. You want to hang out with Russell Brand and you watch The Ellen Show like the world is going to end. Our fights are the worst, the happy days we spend together the best. No matter how we wish things would've been different, don't doubt that I love you.

You gave me my beautiful, bitter, sarcastic wit, you stripped away all thoughts that I could exceed beyond expectations. But deep within layers of armor, my romantic heart still glows with a small flame you no longer have. I wish I could give you that small spark of hope. For now I remain-

a jack of all trades- master of none.

2010 Day 3 Letter

Frustration

Another blog post, I know. I'm overwhelming right now. I just needed a space to vent after today.

I love my job. I'm good at what I do. I have a special bond with kids that allows me to help in ways their parents can't. I see them and understand them and try to treat them with respect and understanding. Most of the time it seems like I have magical powers. I can get through to this one girl that all others seem to have given up on, herself and her parents included. She's smart, witty, brilliant at putting certain concepts together, but she drags her feet.

Usually I can get her to do her work- today, though, today was just awful. Part of me blames it on the fact that I skipped out of the shower and left the house without any makeup whatsoever, as if some preternatural mascara would have made all the difference. I've never seen her so frustrated, so determined to pit herself against me, so ruthless in her efforts to free fall into a dive I know she'll never come out of. Trust me, once you have 25 missing assignments in one class, there's no way you're making them all up.

Today I felt bereft of my magic. I felt defeated and upset. I was exhausted and irrationally disappointed in myself.

I can't make her choices for her, I'm not even her family, but I care about her, and for her to push me away totally sucked. Also, I hadn't eaten anything because I was running late for work, so it wasn't until nearly eight o'clock at night that I actually consumed a handful of calories, which might account for some of my irrational feelings.


I'm tired, I'm frustrated, and I'm afraid I'm going to lose this girl and watch her flunk out of school. Maybe mascara has no special powers, but I'm putting on two coats tomorrow in hopes it'll be a better day and that whatever is going on with her, she'll open up to me and help me help her.

Bitter/Compassion

I used to be the most compassionate person that people knew. An old lady trying to water her flowers would bring out the best in me. I would offer to help her, strike up a conversation, and spend the afternoon looking at old photo albums of her with her late husband.

Where did I go? Somewhere along the lines of jesting about being bitter and jokingly telling people to suck it up, I lost all of my compassion. Has my life gotten so bad that I really think everyone's life is easier, or have I had the strength to stand alone and think of other people as weak? Or am I jealous that other people are used to having support systems while I have stood alone since kindergarten? Or do I just not respect anyone anymore?

My life is not that bad. It's not ideal, but whose is? So why have I become this bitter old hag? My god, I'm barely an adult. I've barely made it past puberty and being a teenager. How did I become this angry, cranky, awful old lady who wears all black and lives in the shady looking house on the corner surrounded by 72 black cats?

I can't go around telling people that they are weak if they cry. I can't tell people that it's not okay to lean on anyone else or be emotionally needy for 5 minutes. That's really not okay (as I am beginning to see).

Maybe somewhere along the way my hatred for emotionally clingy women got to me, and now I take it out on everyone. Maybe I tried to rescue too many people who shattered me over and over again. Maybe I got tired of being the one everyone leaned on for support. Maybe I was upset that I am always the rock of the family, and I am not allowed to lean on any of my family members in return. Maybe too many people invited me to their pity parties and took advantage of my compassion. Maybe too many people asked it of me, whereas I feel most compassionate for those who do not seek pity. Maybe it's that too many people are fake, and I only want to see truth.

Point is, I have to find that little girl that can't resist mending someone's broken heart.

I'm going to blame the tears here on lack of sleep and emotional overload. And who is here to see me shed them? The interwebs. Who will hold me as I cry myself to sleep? My own arms.

Maybe if I can find that compassion again I'll let someone lean on me, and maybe she hold me as I fall asleep.