Category: Growing Up Compassionate

March 21, 2021

Continued from Abused No More on High Street Chapter 8

When I read stories on the internet about abusive relationships, it is so often, “he said-she said”.

The victim is the victim and the abuser condemned. In the real world however, it may not be so simple. Victim and abuser are both human beings. Within each human is the potential for both good and evil. And within each is the hope of salvation.

1 John 1:8 “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.”

The first time was in high school. A life-saver candy hurled at the wall of the girl’s restroom. Shattered into tiny pieces, the release was for me—cathartic…and dangerous. Like kids today who cut themselves to release a build up of pressure—I had found an unhealthy (yet seemingly so innocent) outlet for my deepest frustrations.

Fast forward ten years. I regrettably (deep regrets) hurled something not so innocent and not belonging to me; something precious of my husband’s. It shattered into tiny pieces, but this time the release was not cathartic. I felt the hook of a bizarre addictive behavior triggered by our fighting that would last for too long.

A pattern continued sporadically, and yes, always his things. A terrible symptom of something I could not yet understand, I suffered. And so did the man I loved. I was out of my mind and inside desperately wanted someone else to stop me, to hold me; perhaps pin me down until the feelings of impending doom that raced through my body subsided. I felt as if my own being would break and shatter into tiny pieces.

At the time, I did not yet understand complex PTSD or the devastation I would cause. At the time, mental health was not so openly spoken about. I quietly kept my inner turmoil to myself just under the surface so as not to upset the illusion of peace. Quietly that is until the two of us would clumsily fumble through our own inability to communicate like healthy adults—and the tantrums would begin once again.

As I write about this now, under the current circumstances, I can’t help but look back and shake my head as if waking from a ridiculously long nightmare. How does it happen that two people who love one another (and get along well most of the time) could act out so destructively? As if possessed by demons. What strange mix of karmic afflictions and family heredity working out through the minds and bodies of two people who came together to have and to hold to care for one another in sickness and health…it takes two. Always.

Since then, instead of throwing and breaking things, I discovered a much better way to release some of my pent up stress.

I throw knives.

–NZain

I write about these things because it is a fact. For too many years I stayed quiet with the horrible feelings eating away at my insides and most importantly, my marriage. Pretending to be happy is no way to live life. And life is short.