My Reeducation, undertaken to learn how to counter the effects of verbal and emotional abuse, reinflicted these with a vengeance. I had a certain history, which is why I sought Reeducation in the first place, but Reeducation made things far worse, and I became more vulnerable to abusers than I had been up to that point.
When I began this weblog, I was in an emotionally abusive relationship. I would write blog posts after certain kinds of encounters to recompose myself and to become whole again. After six months I was recomposed enough to leave. That is one of the reasons why I am happy with the blog, and its anniversary which coincides with Carnaval.
During that time I realized that much of the common knowledge on relationships is not applicable to abusive ones. “Keep on working,” “Have a conversation,” and “Admit your failings” in abusive contexts are not Keys To Enlightenment, but Power Tools. They obscure the situation, and keep you disempowered. Now I am cleaning the desk and I have three notes on post-its, which I transfer here for the interest of any Random Reader who may Want To Know.
1.1. From a website whose address I have lost: these relationships work to change you. It is not as simple as, something bad happens and you suffer, until you escape. They work to change you. I of course should have known this, since I know how torture works, but it is of course true as well of other forms of abuse – and I would hazard, of power dynamics in general. They destabilize in ways that are often hard to see. Nezua has a very good post about how this works in the context of negotiating race relations.
1.2. From a friend who got apparently very good domestic violence counseling, mandated by the state in a foreign country: it is not what the abuser does to you which matters, as much as what they can get you to do to yourself.
1.3. What I notice about people in abusive relationships, and in myself, is that other accidents mysteriously also happen. One is already disoriented, or has already learned not to take care – and then other accidents mysteriously also happen.
Always maintain integrity. Integrity is not merely responsible or ethical behavior. It is wholeness.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 