Dark Corners & Closed Doors
Earlier this year, I read the book “Into the Darkest Corner” by Elizabeth Haynes. Loosely summarized without giving away any plot details, the book is about a woman’s slow decent into an abusive relationship, her subsequent psychological trauma which led to severe obsessive-compulsive disorder, and her ultimate steps to recovery. The psychology in this book is FASCINATING! You may not know that my first college major was psychology. Sometimes I really regret abandoning that major, but, if I am being honest, I wasn’t in a place emotionally to really devote myself to the study.
Not long after reading Haynes’ book, I read “Behind Closed Doors” by B.A. Paris. In this book, a woman who looks after her mentally disabled younger sister falls in love with a man and marries him, only to find out afterward that he is a barbaric monster. He uses the woman’s younger sister as a pawn to keep her in line. It was so disturbing I almost didn’t finish it, but the writing, and, yes, the psychology behind it, was amazing.
These books spoke to me, not only because of the psychological aspects, but because of the emotions it evoked in me. Most everyone knows someone whose life has been touched by domestic violence. How many times have you heard, or even said, “why doesn’t she just LEAVE?”
Gosh, if it was only so easy. An abusive relationship doesn’t typically start off that way. The beginning of the relationship is just like any other: all flowers and rainbows and sunshine. An abuser knows how to gradually begin introducing abusive behavior, starting with things that seem innocuous or things that can be explained away:
“Oh, he was hurt in a prior relationship so he’s just feeling a little insecure.”
“He just wants to be sure I am safe, so he checks on me often.”
I know because I’ve said these words before. My last relationship, which was long, long ago (in a galaxy far away 😉) started off great. We’ll call the guy “Guy” because that seems original. Anyway, when I first started dating Guy, he seemed perfect: opening doors and other gentlemanly things, supporting the considerable time I devoted to animal rescue, understanding my large group of close friends and my busy social life. I remember him saying that he’d “never stand in the way of my work with animals” and that I should go out and enjoy time with my friends as much as I liked. Before that relationship, I hadn’t been in one in a long, long time (in a galaxy even further away), so I’d become accustomed to doing things my way on my terms on my timeline. I explained that to him and told him it was going to take time for me to remember what it was like to compromise.
I think he took that as a challenge to step up his game. Soon, I started noticing little things and explaining them away. I forgot my phone at home one day and he’d been texting me and couldn’t reach me. When I saw him that evening, I apologized and explained what happened. At that moment, I realized I could have called him from my work phone and said as much. Instead of “yeah, honey. Next time that would be great” I was made to feel stupid for not thinking of that before. Never mind that I was at work, um working, and maybe not thinking of the fact he’d want to be able to reach me. Previously, I hardly heard from him during the day. Instead of telling him to piss off and not talk down to me, I found myself believing that I’d been wholly inconsiderate and selfish.
After several incidences such as that, things came to a head. One Saturday, I was having furniture delivered. I took the Friday before off and spent the entire day moving out my old furniture and scrubbing the living room within an inch of its life. After the furniture guys left, I tidied up the rest of the house before testing out my new sofa. I fell sound asleep. I slept so hard I didn’t wake up until he rang my doorbell. Bleary-eyed and disoriented and looking like…well, like I’d cleaned my ASS off for two days…I answered the door. He took one look at me and started searching the house to see “who” made me look that way.
That was something I couldn’t explain away. I realized how many times I’d defended him to my friends, defended myself to him, and saw that I was in a heap of trouble. We’d only been together a few months. I broke it off. He was not happy. For months afterward, he would drive past my house slowly. That year my outdoor Christmas lights mysteriously stopped working. Upon closer inspection, I saw a line was cut. Since he lived nearby, he found reasons and ways to “bump into me” or to ask for my “help” for months afterward, and it still happens occasionally to this day.
Thankfully, although I didn’t see the signs early on, I saw them in time to get myself out of the situation before I was in too deep. I was lucky. I had been in therapy for years by that point and had started to build up my confidence and had increased awareness of my own emotional cues, which I had spent years trying to stifle after being told I was “too emotional” for most of my life.
I actually started this blog post months ago but this whole year has been pretty freaking bananas (more on that in a later post). With the recent tragic events in the news regarding Gabby Petito and Brian Laundrie, I started reflecting on this blog post again and decided I should finish it. I have heard a lot of disparaging remarks about Gabby staying in an abusive relationship and also quite a few folks ponder if the abuse was the reverse: that Brian was the abused. I am not here to debate that. I am not even here to talk about them, I am just using their story to explain why I have published this post after not posting for almost a whole year.
What I am here to say is that it’s not as cut and dried as you would think. If you’ve not been in the situation, you really don’t know what it’s like. In this, as in all things, please take the time to show compassion. You can still be enraged. In fact, you should be enraged. Abuse, in all its forms, no matter the severity should make you MAD. AS. HELL. But don’t judge the abused. I can guarantee she (or he!) has had enough of that to last a lifetime, no matter how long, or tragically short, that lifetime may be.
