Miscellania Life’s Miscellania

This is something I wrote 7 years ago. I found it in my writings folder. It’s about abuse.

It’s Not Your Fault!!!!!
by  stormyeyez,  15th February 2001.

Society and the tendency to make abuse/rape survivors feel they are to blame.

I recently read the story of a woman who was blaming herself for the death of her daughter. This was a death that was sadly unnecessary, as was her self-blame, but I think the worst part of it was her family and friends blamed her as well. Did she kill her daughter? No, her husband did. They were in the garage and the woman was trying to stop her husband, who was in a rage, from going out on the road and possibly killing someone. He grabbed her by the hair (he was in the car) and started rolling up the window. As he did this he slammed her face into the window and continued rolling her hair up in the window. About this time their daughter came to the garage door and told her Daddy not to take off he had her Mommy by the hair and she started running for the car. He slammed his foot down on the gas and it was just as the little girl was at the back of the car. She died as a result of the head injuries she incurred from the back tire pulling her under.

How is this the mother’s fault? It is so easy for someone who has never been in an abusive situation to say “I would have left the first time he hit me” or “No man would ever hit me” or “If you hadn’t stayed then this wouldn’t have happened” or even “If she stayed she wanted it”. Fear is a very strong means of control and one of the hardest to break free from. You cannot know what it is truly like until you have “walked a mile in their shoes” so to speak.

Guilt from other people is the last thing any person needs in times like these. Abuse survivors heap more than enough on ourselves. The “if only’s” scream through our minds and taunt us with what might have been and what we should have done. What someone needs in times like these is support, hugs, being told, “I care” and “It isn’t your fault”. I read her story and wept, not only for the loss of a precious little girl, but because this woman was apologizing and terrified those who read her story would think less of her and not want to talk to her anymore.

I was 15 and in what started out a terrific relationship. I grew close to his family and was treated like and referred to as their daughter. I had the relationship with his mother that I had never been able to have with my own. The change came slowly and sinisterly. It tends to sneak up on you. Usually by the time the abuser actually hits you, they have you right where they want you emotionally. How so? Emotional abuse is the main way. He started out putting me down in little ways, making me feel as though he was doing me a favor staying with me because no one else would want me. By the time he pushed me for the first time I was beaten down emotionally. Of course I got told the typical “I’m so sorry, it won’t happen again” lines. Sometimes though, he shifted the blame to me. “If you were good then I wouldn’t have had to do this” was a frequent statement.

Why didn’t I leave? As I have said before, fear is a very powerful means of control. He beat, stabbed, and burned me when he was mad at someone else. There was no doubt in my mind that if _I_ made him mad he would kill me. No one knew what I was going through. I had become very clever at using makeup to hide any visible marks, though usually he marked me in places that most clothes would cover. I gave up skating, which I loved, because the skating dress showed the marks on my thighs. It took me 8 months to finally get the courage to leave. The last straw was when he raped me and had a female friend of his write a letter that was supposedly from me to him talking about how much that night had meant to me. This letter conveniently was passed around at school. Even so it took me almost 3 months to work up the courage to leave, but that was when I knew _I had to_. When I did it, I arranged for it to be in a public park with his mom, my grandmother, his sister, and a bunch of my guy friends scattered throughout the park. All I said in explanation was “I don’t know how he will react and I am afraid”.

He didn’t take it well. He stalked me, he called my family crying that he loved me and couldn’t understand why I had left him, he got our mutual friends to try to convince me to take him back, and countless other ways of trying to convince and/or intimidate me into coming back. When I finally began telling people what had happened they blamed me. I was told it was my fault, I asked for it and I deserved it by my mother. Others said if he really had done these things then I should have said something, that any intelligent person would have left when it first started, that I must have enjoyed being abused if I stayed for so long, etc. _These_ are the types of attitudes that need to be stopped.

Today’s society has a disturbing way of making the victims and survivors feel like _they_ are the criminals. A rape victim and their past is put on trial just as much or more as the rapist, a battered woman is often shunned and whispered about like _she_ is the one doing wrong, an abused child is often lost in the cracks because so many try to say “He is just looking for attention”. Each abuse case needs to be treated like there never was someone who tried to cheat the system, like it is the abuser’s and not the victim’s fault, and like it isn’t something to be ashamed of to have ended up in this situation. If you know someone who has been abused, tell them (as much as it takes for them to believe it) that it is not their fault. If you are a survivor, then I am telling you now “It is NOT your fault!!!”